Related papers: Evolution favors protein mutational robustness in …

The interconnected processes of protein folding, mutations, epistasis, and evolution have all been the subject of extensive analysis throughout the years due to their significance for structural and evolutionary biology. The origin…

Darwin's theory of evolution is considered to be one of the greatest scientific gems in modern science. It not only gives us a description of how living things evolve, but also shows how a population evolves through time and also, why only…

We propose a class of evolutionary models that involves an arbitrary exchangeable process as the breeding process and different selection schemes. In those models, a new genome is born according to the breeding process, and then a genome is…

A central biological question is how natural organisms are so evolvable (capable of quickly adapting to new environments). A key driver of evolvability is the widespread modularity of biological networks--their organization as functional,…

Predicting the adaptation of populations to a changing environment is crucial to assess the impact of human activities on biodiversity. Many theoretical studies have tackled this issue by modeling the evolution of quantitative traits…

Survival analysis concerns the task of predicting the time until an event occurs. Often used in the medical field, survival analysis deals with incomplete (i.e., censored) data, for instance, from patients who did not experience the event…

Here we study how mutations which change physical properties of cell proteins (stability) impact population survival and growth. In our model the genotype is presented as a set of N numbers, folding free energies of cells N proteins.…

Evolutionary branching is analysed in a stochastic, individual-based population model under mutation and selection. In such models, the common assumption is that individual reproduction and life career are characterised by values of a…

Several studies question the adaptive value of female preferences for older males. Theory and evidence show that older males carry more deleterious mutations in their sperm than younger males carry. These mutations are not visible to…

Predicting protein properties is paramount for biological and medical advancements. Current protein engineering mutates on a typical protein, called the wild-type, to construct a family of homologous proteins and study their properties.…

We study the evolution of large but finite asexual populations evolving in fitness landscapes in which all mutations are either neutral or strongly deleterious. We demonstrate that despite the absence of higher fitness genotypes, adaptation…

The environment in which a population evolves can have a crucial impact on selection. We study evolutionary dynamics in finite populations of fixed size in a changing environment. The population dynamics are driven by birth and death…

We show how the characteristics of the evolutionary algorithm influence the evolvability of candidate solutions, i.e. the propensity of evolving individuals to generate better solutions as a result of genetic variation. More specifically,…

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…

We study the evolution of preferences in multi-population settings that allow matches across distinct populations. Each individual has subjective preferences over potential outcomes, and chooses a best response based on his preferences and…

The preferred conditions for evolutionary innovation is a fundamental question, but little is known, in part because the question involves rare events. We focused on the potential role of polyploidy in the evolution of novel traits. There…

The contribution to an organism's phenotype from one genetic locus may depend upon the status of other loci. Such epistatic interactions among loci are now recognized as fundamental to shaping the process of adaptation in evolving…

We simulate the evolution of model protein sequences subject to mutations. A mutation is considered neutral if it conserves 1) the structure of the ground state, 2) its thermodynamic stability and 3) its kinetic accessibility. All other…

Motivated by present activities in (statistical) physics directed towards biological evolution, we review the interplay of three evolutionary forces: mutation, selection, and genetic drift. The review addresses itself to physicists and…

Exposing an Evolutionary Algorithm that is used to evolve robot controllers to variable conditions is necessary to obtain solutions which are robust and can cross the reality gap. However, we do not yet have methods for analyzing and…