Related papers: Complex patterns of local adaptation in teosinte
The metaphor of holey adaptive landscapes provides a pictorial representation of the process of speciation as a consequence of genetic divergence. In this metaphor, biological populations diverge along connected clusters of well-fit…
Epistasis occurs when the effect of a mutation depends on its carrier's genetic background. Despite increasing evidence that epistasis for fitness is common, its role during evolution is contentious. Fitness landscapes, mappings of genotype…
Within the framework of population genetics we consider the evolution of an asexual haploid population under the effect of a rapidly varying natural selection (microevolution). We focus on the case in which the environment exerting…
When biological populations expand into new territory, the evolutionary outcomes can be strongly influenced by genetic drift, the random fluctuations in allele frequencies. Meanwhile, spatial variability in the environment can also…
Speciation is often associated with geographical barriers that limit gene flow. However, species can also emerge in continuous homogeneous environments through isolation by distance. When the environment is not homogeneous, natural…
We present a model for evolving agents using both genetic and cultural inheritance mechanisms. Within each agent our model maintains two distinct information stores we call the genome and the memome. Processes of adaptation are modeled as…
We consider a population subdivided into two demes connected by migration in which selection acts in opposite direction. We explore the effects of recombination and migration on the maintenance of multilocus polymorphism, on local…
The quantitative characterization of mutational landscapes is a task of outstanding importance in evolutionary and medical biology: It is, e.g., of central importance for our understanding of the phenotypic effect of mutations related to…
A reduction in number and an increase in size of inflorescences is a common aspect of plant domestication. When maize was domesticated from teosinte, the number and arrangement of ears changed dramatically. Teosinte has long lateral…
Heterozygote disadvantage is potentially a potent driver of population genetic divergence. Also referred to as underdominance, this phenomena describes a situation where a genetic heterozygote has a lower overall fitness than either…
An organism that is newly introduced into an existing population has a survival probability that is dependent on both the population density of its environment and the competition it experiences with the members of that population.…
The presence of one or more species at some spatial locations but not others is a central matter in ecology. This phenomenon is related to ecological pattern formation. Nonlocal interactions can be considered as one of the mechanisms…
Do ecosystems primarily reflect evolutionary history or current environment? Predicting land-atmosphere exchange hinges on this unresolved question. Plant traits adapt to particular environments over evolutionary timescales, yet their…
Evolution on neutral networks of genotypes has been found in models to concentrate on genotypes with high mutational robustness, to a degree determined by the topology of the network. Here analysis is generalized beyond neutral networks to…
Speciation is of fundamental importance to understanding the huge diversity of life on Earth. In contrast to current phenomenological models, we develop a biophysically motivated approach to study speciation involving the co-evolution of…
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…
A variety of genome transformations can occur as a microbial population adapts to a large environmental change. In particular, genomic surveys indicate that, following the transition to an obligate, host-dependent symbiont, the density of…
A population evolving in an inhomogeneous environment will adapt differently to different regions. We study the conditions under which such a population can maintain adaptations to a particular region when that region is not stationary, but…
The exploration of vast genotype spaces poses fundamental challenges for evolving populations. As the number of genotypes encoding viable phenotypes grows exponentially with genome length, populations can only explore a tiny fraction of…
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…