James V. Kohl

Evidently, our ancestors come from a planet-sized ecological niche. Thus, ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction can now be considered in the context of model organisms from microbes to man. For instance, species diversity is invariably nutrient-dependent because nutrient availability establishes the ecological niche. Subtle differences in the ecological niche can be expected as can the need for subtle alterations in the nutrient-dependent thermodynamics of intercellular signaling and stochastic gene expression that enables morphological adaptations consistent with organism-level thermoregulation.
In all cases of thermodynamically controlled organism-level thermoregulation, which is required for adaptive evolution, the metabolism of nutrients to species-specific pheromones establishes the social niche in the context of morphologically similar conspecifics. Nutrient availability and pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution then enable neurogenic niche construction exemplified in nematodes.
Additional neurogenic niche construction enables socio-cognitive niche construction in eusocial insects, as exemplified in the honeybee model organism. The honeybee model organism links nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled behavior and brain development from invertebrates to vertebrates.
Extension of this model of nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution across species should surprise no one. Even the location where skull 5 was found will be only mildly surprising to readers of Greg Bear’s science fiction novels: Darwin’s Radio and Darwin’s Children. His story about the evolution of a new species of human began in Georgia, like the story of skull 5.
But obviously, Greg Bear was toying with his readers. He had individuals of the NEW human species from Georgia communicating with pheromones, when it has become perfectly clear that all humans have been communicating with pheromones for many years, just like every other species on the planet. Skull 5 exemplifies the fact that olfaction and odor receptors provide a clear evolutionary trail that can be followed from unicellular organisms to insects to humans
The concept that is extended is the epigenetic tweaking of immense gene networks in ‘superorganisms’ that solve problems through the exchange and the selective cancellation and modification of signals. Simply put, human skulls were tweaked; they are not the mutated skulls of another species.