How can we measure the information created by natural selection?

Abstract

Natural selection can create information. In particular, because of the action of natural selection, we can often learn something about an environment by examining local organisms, and vice versa. For example, the characteristics of a cactus suggest that the local environment is relatively dry, and if a natural terrestrial environment is dry, then we will generally have an enhanced probability of finding drought-resistant plants (like cacti). Here, we propose a measure that can be used to quantify the information that is created by natural selection. We call the proposed quantity reproductive information, and we show that it has an intuitively satisfying relationship to standard quantitative definitions of information. Reproductive information is also approximately equal to a previously defined measure of biological adaptation. In addition, we explain how reproductive information can be measured using phenotypic characters, instead of genotypes. This could facilitate the measurement of reproductive information, and it could also allow for the quantification of the information that is created by natural selection on groups of organisms, instead of just selection on individuals. Thus, the concept of reproductive information has the potential to advance research on the "units of selection", the "major transitions in evolution", and the emergence of "superorganisms" via cooperation among group members.