Effects of neutral selection on the evolution of molecular species
Abstract
We introduce a new model of evolution on a fitness landscape possessing a tunable degree of neutrality. The model allows us to study the general properties of molecular species undergoing neutral evolution. We find that a number of phenomena seen in RNA sequence-structure maps are present also in our general model. Examples are the occurrence of "common" structures which occupy a fraction of the genotype space which tends to unity as the length of the genotype increases, and the formation of percolating neutral networks which cover the genotype space in such a way that a member of such a network can be found within a small radius of any point in the space. We also describe a number of new phenomena which appear to be general properties of neutrally evolving systems. In particular, we show that the maximum fitness attained during the adaptive walk of a population evolving on such a fitness landscape increases with increasing degree of neutrality, and is directly related to the fitness of the most fit percolating network.
Cite
@article{arxiv.adap-org/9712005,
title = {Effects of neutral selection on the evolution of molecular species},
author = {M. E. J. Newman and Robin Engelhardt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:adap-org/9712005},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
16 pages including 4 postscript figures, typeset in LaTeX2e using the Elsevier macro package elsart.cls