LETTER Reply to Mohlenhoff et al.: Human behavioral ecology needs a rethink that niche-construction theory can provide In their response to my recent PNAS article cause humans to undertake cost/benefit anal- of NCT into HBE holds tremendous potential (1), Mohlenhoff et al. (2) embrace a view of yses of whether or not to engage in more for understanding initial domestication and optimal foraging theory (OFT) and its um- labor-intensive, less-optimal, niche-altering other transitions in human history. These brella discipline, human behavioral ecology behaviors. Instead, they can more profitably benefits will not be realized if HBE continues (HBE) grounded in standard evolutionary be viewed as initiatives humans use to ac- to be viewed through the lens of SET. Instead, theory (SET). According to this view, anthro- tively alter selective environments and shape as advocated for HBE’s parent discipline pogenic environmental enhancements are no their own evolutionary trajectories. behavioral ecology (6), there is a need for different from other environmental perturba- NCT, moreover, expands the mechanisms a major rethink of HBE that embraces the tions that alter selective pressures and induce of evolutionary inheritance beyond the SET view of reciprocal causation and human adaptive behavioral responses. This perspec- focus on genes shaped by natural selection to agency integral to NCT and its macroevo- tive may explain why, as Mohlenhoff et al. (2) include multiple internal and external trans- note, researchers working within this frame- mission channels. In addition to epigenetic lutionary foundation. work invariably ignore niche-constructing and developmental processes, these chan- Melinda A. Zeder1 behaviors in explanations of initial domes- nels include acquired behaviors transmitted tication. Following SET, the source of en- through social learning. In humans, the Program in Human Ecology and vironmental change is of less import than enhanced capacity for information trans- Archaeobiology, Department of Anthropology, the resultant adaptive behavioral responses. fer through language vastly enhances the National Museum of Natural History, These responses are framed, moreover, within fidelity of these inheritance channels. This Smithsonian Institution, Washington, a general theory of human behavior that dis- capacity is the focus of cultural niche DC 20560 misses human agency as “one of an array construction, a subset of NCT that explores of historical processes or proximal mecha- the ways in which culture shapes the evolu- nisms” (3)thatfailtorisetothelevelofulti- tionary trajectories of humans and other 1 Zeder MA (2015) Core questions in domestication research. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112(11):3191–3198. mate causes of evolution. Identifying ultimate organisms living in anthropogenic niches 2 Mohlenhoff KA, Coltrain JB, Codding BF (2015) Optimal causes of evolutionary change, following this (5). Thus, far from arguing for some form foraging theory and niche-construction theory do not stand in logic, is restricted to demonstrating how “nat- of human exceptionalism by emphasizing opposition. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112:E3093. ... 3 Codding BF, Bird DW (2015) Behavioral ecology and the future of ural selection shapes the way people make the role of human agency in evolution (3), archaeological science. J Arch Sci 56:9–20. decisions” (4). NCT provides a framework for understand- 4 Gremillion KJ, Barton L, Piperno DR (2014) Particularism and the Rather than viewing ecosystem enhance- ing how human cognitive capacities fall retreat from theory in the archaeology of agricultural origins. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111(17):6171–6177. ment as nothing more than an adaptive within a larger set of mechanisms by which 5 Laland KN, Odling-Smee J, Hoppitt W, Uller T (2013) More on how response to environmental change, niche- both humans and nonhuman organisms and why: Cause and effect in biology revisited. Biol Philos 28(5): construction theory (NCT) recognizes niche- shape selective environments and codirect 793–810. altering activities as part of a complex web their evolution. Cultural niche construction, 6 Gordon D (2011) The fusion of behavioral ecology and ecology. Behav Ecol 22(2):225–230. of reciprocal of interactions between envi- then, provides the “general theory of behav- ronment and behavior that have profound ior” that Mohlenhoff et al. (2) and others (4) evolutionary impacts (5). These activities claim NCT lacks. Author contributions: M.A.Z. wrote the paper. need not be responses to external forces HBE and NCT are not mutually exclusive, The author declares no conflict of interest. that adversely affect resource availability and oppositional approaches. Indeed, the infusion 1Email: [email protected]. E3094 | PNAS | June 16, 2015 | vol. 112 | no. 24 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1508096112 Downloaded by guest on September 27, 2021.