. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. INFORMATION IN THE ENVIRONMENT 125 Organism Causal agenls. Figure 1. Diagram of relationships between an organism and its environment. On the left are the two types of influences on an organ- ism, and on the right its impact on the environment is represented by its behavior. Shaded ovals indicate the types of information within the organism. concentrations of chemicals or weaker physical forces than those that directly affect an organism. The scent and color of a flower have importance to a bee only because they are associat
. The Biological bulletin. Biology; Zoology; Biology; Marine Biology. INFORMATION IN THE ENVIRONMENT 125 Organism Causal agenls. Figure 1. Diagram of relationships between an organism and its environment. On the left are the two types of influences on an organ- ism, and on the right its impact on the environment is represented by its behavior. Shaded ovals indicate the types of information within the organism. concentrations of chemicals or weaker physical forces than those that directly affect an organism. The scent and color of a flower have importance to a bee only because they are associated with nectar (or pollen), which has nu- tritional value to the bee. Thus, the scent and color carry information about the presence of nectar or pollen. As indicated in Figure 1, behavioral activities are reg- ulated by information from three distinct sources: ge- nome, memory, and sensations. The process of selective reproduction results in a store of information in the ge- nome about what decisions and behaviors have been suc- cessful in the past for an organism's ancestors. The pro- cess of learning results in a store of information in mem- ory about what behaviors have been productive for the individual organism previously. The senses provide in- formation about the current state of the environment. Each of these sources of information thus works over a different time scale and is complementary to the others. I propose that all organisms probably make use of all three types of information, when learning and memory are de- nned functionally, which leads to the inclusion of sen- sory adaptation, acclimatization, and habituation (Du- senbery, in press). One of the most fascinating questions in biology is this: what do organisms know about their environment? In other words, what information do they obtain? This question is difficult to answer for animals other than our- selves and becomes increasingly difficult as organisms differ more from us. A revelation of this century is
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