Related papers: Genome evolution in an endangered freshwater musse…
As organisms are faced with intense rapidly changing selective pressures, new genetic material is required to facilitate adaptation. Among sources of genetic novelty, gene duplications and transposable elements (TEs) offer new genes or new…
Freshwater Unionid bivalves have recently faced ecological upheaval through pollution, barriers to dispersal, human harvesting, and changes in fish-host prevalence. Currently, over 70% of species are threatened, endangered or extinct. To…
We study the dynamics of a population subject to selective pressures, evolving either on RNA neutral networks or in toy fitness landscapes. We discuss the spread and the neutrality of the population in the steady state. Different limits…
A simple analytical framework to study the molecular quasispecies evolution of finite populations is proposed, in which the population is assumed to be a random combination of the constiyuent molecules in each generation,i.e., linkage…
Large populations may contain numerous simultaneously segregating polymorphisms subject to natural selection. Since selection acts on individuals whose fitness depends on many loci, different loci affect each other's dynamics. This leads to…
Conventional population genetics considers the evolution of a limited number of genotypes corresponding to phenotypes with different fitness. As model phenotypes, in particular RNA secondary structure, have become computationally tractable,…
Very low levels of genetic diversity have been reported in vertebrates with large genomes, notably salamanders and lungfish [1-3]. Interpreting differences in heterozygosity, which reflects genetic diversity in a population, is complicated…
We introduce and analyze a general model of a population evolving over a network of selectively neutral genotypes. We show that the population's limit distribution on the neutral network is solely determined by the network topology and…
Comparative studies of cancer-related genes allow us to gain novel information about the evolution and function of these genes, but also to understand cancer as a driving force in biological systems and species life histories. So far,…
Intragenomic recombination (crossover) is a very important evolutionary mechanism. The crossover events are not evenly distributed along the natural chromosomes. Monte Carlo simulations revealed that frequency of recombinations decides…
We study the evolution of the population genealogy in the classic neutral Moran Model of finite size and in discrete time. The stochastic transformations that shape a Moran population can be realized directly on its genealogy and give rise…
Some species exhibit very high levels of DNA sequence variability; there is also evidence for the existence of heritable epigenetic variants that experience state changes at a much higher rate than sequence variants. In both cases, the…
We investigate the evolutionary rescue of a microbial population in a gradually deteriorating environment, through a combination of analytical calculations and stochastic simulations. We consider a population destined for extinction in the…
Standard neutral population genetics theory with a strictly fixed population size has important limitations. An alternative model that allows independently fluctuating population sizes and reproduces the standard neutral evolution is…
Whether evolution can be predicted is a key question in evolutionary biology. Here we set out to better understand the repeatability of evolution. We explored experimentally the effect of mutation supply and the strength of selective…
The drift-barrier hypothesis states that random genetic drift constrains the refinement of a phenotype under natural selection. The influence of effective population size and the genome-wide deleterious mutation rate were studied…
Tandem duplications are an essential source of genetic novelty, and their variation in natural populations is expected to influence adaptive walks. Here, we describe evolutionary impacts of recently-derived, segregating tandem duplications…
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…
In both natural and artificial studies, evolution is often seen as synonymous to natural selection. Individuals evolve under pressures set by environments that are either reset or do not carry over significant changes from previous…
Neutral evolution assumes that there are no selective forces distinguishing different variants in a population. Despite this striking assumption, many recent studies have sought to assess whether neutrality can provide a good description of…