Related papers: Genome evolution in an endangered freshwater musse…
We investigate the evolutionary dynamics of a finite population of RNA sequences adapting to a neutral fitness landscape. Despite the lack of differential fitness between viable sequences, we observe typical properties of adaptive…
Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. It is well known that population structure can affect evolutionary dynamics. Traditionally, natural selection is studied between mutants that differ in reproductive rate, but are…
Population genetics struggles to model extinction; standard models track the relative rather than absolute fitness of genotypes, while the exceptions describe only the short-term transition from imminent doom to evolutionary rescue. But…
Character evolution that affects ecological community interactions often occurs contemporaneously with temporal changes in population size, potentially altering the very nature of those dynamics. Such eco-evolutionary processes may be most…
On rugged fitness landscapes where sign epistasis is common, adaptation can often involve either individually beneficial "uphill" mutations or more complex mutational trajectories involving fitness valleys or plateaus. The dynamics of the…
We identify the genetic signature of a selective sweep in a population described by a birth-and-death process with density dependent competition. We study the limit behaviour for large K, where K scales the population size. We focus on two…
We consider the effect of network structure on the evolution of a population. Models of this kind typically consider a population of fixed size and distribution. Here we consider eco-evolutionary dynamics where population size and…
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…
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…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
We updated the agent based Monte Carlo code HERITAGE that simulates human evolution within restrictive environments such as interstellar, sub-light speed spacecraft in order to include the effects of population genetics. We incorporated a…
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…
Hubbell's neutral theory of biodiversity has successfully explained the observed composition of many ecological communities but it relies on strict demographic equivalence among species and provides no room for evolutionary processes like…
Neutral evolution is the simplest model of molecular evolution and thus it is most amenable to a comprehensive theoretical investigation. In this paper, we characterize the statistical properties of neutral evolution of proteins under the…
We consider a spatial (line) model for invasion of a population by a single mutant with a stochastically selectively neutral fitness landscape, independent from the fitness landscape for non-mutants. This model is similar to those…
A major aim of evolutionary biology is to explain the respective roles of adaptive versus non-adaptive changes in the evolution of complexity. While selection is certainly responsible for the spread and maintenance of complex phenotypes,…
Significant fraction (about 98.5% in humans, 24% in microbe Rickettsia prowazekii) of most animal genomes is non-coding DNA. Although recent studies established functions of its certain portions, it remains genomic dark matter. The paper…
Genome length varies widely among organisms, from compact genomes of prokaryotes to vast and complex genomes of eukaryotes. In this study, we theoretically identify the evolutionary pressures that may have driven this divergence in genome…
We present novel analytical results about ecosystem species diversity that stem from a proposed coarse grained neutral model based on birth-death processes. The relevance of the problem lies in the urgency for understanding and synthesizing…
Temporal environmental variations are ubiquitous in nature, yet most of the theoretical works in population genetics and evolution assume fixed environment. Here we analyze the effect of variations in carrying capacity on the fate of a…