Reply to Ellis et al.: Human niche construction and evolutionary theory

Abstract

We are pleased Ellis et al. (1) found value in our recent synthesis of the deep history of human impacts on global ecosystems (2) and agree that our paper should influence the current debate on if and how an Anthropocene epoch is defined. We also agree that the ecological consequences of human niche construction have profound and growing effects on the evolutionary trajectories of humans and other species living within human-altered ecosystems. Niche construction theory (NCT) provides an explicit framework for linking evolutionary and ecological processes into a coherent theory of biological … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: nicole.boivin{at}rlaha.ox.ac.uk. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1