FOUNDERS EFFECT
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 1319 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Human sciences |
The long-term dominance in a system of the characteristics brought into it by its founders.
Such characteristics can be genetic, in populations; phonetic, semiotic and semantic in languages; technical, normative and cultural in societies.
It has been well observed on more or less isolated populations of recent historical origins, as for example French Canadians, white South Africans of Dutch stock, or the Kel Kummer seceeded Touareg group (A. CHAVENTRÉ and A. JACQUARD, 1974, p.179-93).
Founders have an influence quite disproportionate to their original numbers. They are generally able to transmit their specific and peculiar traits to their descendants.
In a sense, the founders effect is already present in embryogenesis . The egg develops along different lines of “founding cells ” which generate the different parts of the embryo“ (Eric H. DAVIDSON & al., 1997). According to these authors, no hierarchical regulation is needed - or very few anyway - nor a process of local specification. It thus seems to be ordering through reciprocal position, creating a positional value .
The complete developmental process , specially in bilateral living beings is of course much more intricated, as the Hox genes act as regulators of the hierarchic morphogenesis which determines the ordered plan of the being as a whole.
See also
Homeobox, Morphospace