Spandrel (biology)

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In evolutionary biology, a spandrel is a phenotypic trait that is a byproduct of the evolution of some other characteristic, rather than a direct product of adaptive selection. Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin brought the term into biology in their 1979 paper "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme". Adaptationism is a point of view that sees most organismal traits as adaptive products of natural selection. Gould and Lewontin sought to temper what they saw as adaptationist bias by promoting a more structuralist view of evolution. The term "spandrel" originates from architecture, where it refers to the roughly triangular spaces between the top of an arch and the ceiling.

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