Final answer:
Subunits may accumulate in excess due to initial environmental conditions and evolutionary biases, where certain components are more favored and thus persist, a process which contributes to the memory and stability of biological systems.
Step-by-step explanation:
Subunits can accumulate in excess due to compositional or informational biases that enhance survival and memory in biological systems, which can arise from factors such as environmental conditions, energy constraints, and evolutionary pressures. For instance, in the prebiotic world, certain amino acids were produced and accumulated in greater amounts due to the environmental conditions that favored their synthesis, as shown in the Urey-Miller experiments.
This phenomenon illustrates a form of chemical memory, where the abundance of certain subunits in peptides and nucleic acids is reinforced over time and can be mathematically modeled to understand how these biases affect information storage in biological systems. The recruitment or cooption of these abundant subunits in new contexts (exaptation) also contributes to their persistence and memory within the system, suggesting that mechanisms which contribute to the survival or stability of systems tend to favor the accumulation of certain components over others.