Related papers: The Diversity Paradox: How Nature Resolves an Evol…
The existence of complex (multiple-step) genetic adaptations that are "irreducible" (i.e., all partial combinations are less fit than the original genotype) is one of the longest standing problems in evolutionary biology. In standard…
The question of what determines genetic diversity both between and within species has long remained unsolved by the modern evolutionary theory (MET). However, it has not deterred researchers from producing interpretations of genetic…
The dynamics of adaptation is difficult to predict because it is highly stochastic even in large populations. The uncertainty emerges from number fluctuations, called genetic drift, arising in the small number of particularly fit…
To learn about the past from a sample of genomic sequences, one needs to understand how evolutionary processes shape genetic diversity. Most population genetic inference is based on frameworks assuming adaptive evolution is rare. But if…
Evolution has fascinated quantitative and physical scientists for decades: how can the random process of mutation, recombination, and duplication of genetic information generate the diversity of life? What determines the rate of evolution?…
The selection pressures that have shaped the evolution of complex traits in humans remain largely unknown, and in some contexts highly contentious, perhaps above all where they concern mean trait differences among groups. To date, the…
Both evolution and ecology have long been concerned with the impact of variable environmental conditions on observed levels of genetic diversity within and between species. We model the evolution of a quantitative trait under selection that…
Cryptic genetic sequences have attenuated effects on phenotypes. In the classic view, relaxed selection allows cryptic genetic diversity to build up across individuals in a population, providing alleles that may later contribute to…
It has been hypothesized that one of the main reasons evolution has been able to produce such impressive adaptations is because it has improved its own ability to evolve -- "the evolution of evolvability". Rupert Riedl, for example, an…
We present a model for evolving population which maintains genetic polymorphism. By introducing random mutation in the model population at a constant rate, we observe that the population does not become extinct but survives, keeping…
One of the most intriguing questions in evolution is how organisms exhibit suitable phenotypic variation to rapidly adapt in novel selective environments which is crucial for evolvability. Recent work showed that when selective environments…
If two species exhibit different nonlinear responses to a single shared resource, and if each species modifies the resource dynamics such that this favors its competitor, they may stably coexist. This coexistence mechanism, known as…
In classical evolutionary theory, genetic variation provides the source of heritable phenotypic variation on which natural selection acts. Against this classical view, several theories have emphasized that developmental variability and…
The universal genetic code presents a fundamental paradox in molecular biology. Recent advances in synthetic biology have demonstrated that the code is remarkably flexible--organisms can survive with 61 codons instead of 64, natural…
In apparent contradiction to competition theory, the number of known, co-existing plankton species far exceeds their explicable biodiversity - a discrepancy termed the Paradox of the Plankton. We introduce a new game-theoretic model for…
Range expansion and range shifts are crucial population responses to climate change. Genetic consequences are not well understood but are clearly coupled to ecological dynamics that, in turn, are driven by shifting climate conditions. We…
Positive selection distorts the structure of genealogies and hence alters patterns of genetic variation within a population. Most analyses of these distortions focus on the signatures of hitchhiking due to hard or soft selective sweeps at a…
Biological organisms have to cope with stochastic variations in both the external environment and the internal population dynamics. Theoretical studies and laboratory experiments suggest that population diversification could be an effective…
Maintaining genetic diversity as a means to avoid premature convergence is critical in Genetic Programming. Several approaches have been proposed to achieve this, with some focusing on the mating phase from coupling dissimilar solutions to…
One of the problems in applying Genetic Algorithm is that there is some situation where the evolutionary process converges too fast to a solution which causes it to be trapped in local optima. To overcome this problem, a proper diversity in…