Related papers: A Dual Role for Sex?
The role of epistatic interactions among loci is a central question in evolutionary biology and is increasingly relevant in the genomic age. While the population genetics of compensatory substitution have received considerable attention,…
Cells adapt to different conditions by altering a vast number of components, which is measurable using transcriptome analysis. Given that a cell undergoing steady growth is constrained to sustain each of its internal components, the…
Two important problems affect the ability of asexual populations to accumulate beneficial mutations, and hence to adapt. First, clonal interference causes some beneficial mutations to be outcompeted by more-fit mutations which occur in the…
In this article, we investigate the evolution of sexual diploid populations which are hosts for active TE families. Our purpose is to explore the relationship between the environmental change, that influences such population and activity of…
The sexual version of the Penna model of biological ageing, simulated since 1996, is compared here with alternative forms of reproduction as well as with models not involving ageing. In particular we want to check how sexual forms of life…
Using a simple computer model for evolution, we show that in a sexual population subject only to age-increasing reproductive risk, a cessation of female reproduction emerges.
Evolutionary game theory is an abstract and simple, but very powerful way to model evolutionary dynamics. Even complex biological phenomena can sometimes be abstracted to simple two-player games. But often, the interaction between several…
Natural selection favors the more successful individuals. This is the elementary premise that pervades common models of evolution. Under extreme conditions, however, the process may no longer be probabilistic. Those that meet certain…
In unicellular organisms such as bacteria and in most viruses, mutations mainly occur during reproduction. Thus, genotypes with a high birth rate should have a higher mutation rate. However, standard models of asexual adaptation such as the…
This review is an introduction to theoretical models and mathematical calculations for biological evolution, aimed at physicists. The methods in the field are naturally very similar to those used in statistical physics, although the…
The adaptation process of a species to a new environment is a significant area of study in biology. As part of natural selection, adaptation is a mutation process which improves survival skills and reproductive functions of species. Here,…
Consider a branching process with a homogeneous reproduction law. Sampling a single cell uniformly from the population at a time $T > 0$ and looking along the sampled cell's ancestral lineage, we find that the reproduction law is…
We propose that the evolutionary purpose of junk DNA is to protect the gene. Mutation agents, such as retro-viruses, hit ``decoy'' DNA most of the time. Although the argument is far from general, we propose that the percentage of junk DNA…
Despite the greater functional importance of protein levels, our knowledge of gene expression evolution is based almost entirely on studies of mRNA levels. In contrast, our understanding of how translational regulation evolves has lagged…
The probability of the survival of the population of individuals of both sexes of given mature age, procreation rate and structure stability has been searched in the numerical experiment. The populations with long period of reproduction and…
Despite the wealth of empirical and theoretical studies, the origin and maintenance of cooperation is still an evolutionary riddle. In this context, ecological life-history traits which affect the efficiency of selection may play a role,…
Risk spreading in bacterial populations is generally regarded as a strategy to maximize survival. Here, we study its role during range expansion of a genetically diverse population where growth and motility are two alternative traits. We…
Researchers puzzle over questions as to how rare species survive extinction, and why a significant proportion of microbial taxa are dormant. Computational simulation modeling by a genetic algorithm provides some answers. First, a…
A simulation model of a population having internal (genetic) structure is presented. The population is subject to selection pressure coming from the environment which is the same in the whole system but changes in time. Reproduction has a…
A trademark of eusocial insect species is reproductive division of labor, in which workers forego their own reproduction while the queen produces almost all offspring. The presence of the queen is key for maintaining social harmony, but the…