ABSTRACT
In the case of the immune system, ecological succession has its equivalent in the phenomenon of affinity maturation—the successional development of antibody species. This chapter explores the analogy between ecological succession and affinity maturation. The main element of the analogy is that the plants and animals in an ecological community often become more specifically adapted to their environment and to each other in the course of succession. The clonal-selection model utilizes a collection of self-reproducing cells, and to some extent, it is useful to view the community of cells as an ecological community subject to an antigenic environment. What computer modeling has shown is that the clonal-selection model in its simplest form is incompatible with affinity maturation under realistic assumptions about physiological rate constants. A number of excellent computer models of the immune system have been developed that incorporate the basic mechanisms known to operate in the immune system and which are polyclonal in character.
