Related papers: Selection, Mutations and Codon Usage in Bacterial …
The distributed genome hypothesis states that the set of genes in a population of bacteria is distributed over all individuals that belong to the specific taxon. It implies that certain genes can be gained and lost from generation to…
Conformational fluctuations are believed to play an important role in the process by which transcription factor proteins locate and bind their target site on the genome of a bacterium. Using a simple model, we show that the binding time can…
The evolution of microbial and viral organisms often generates clonal interference, a mode of competition between genetic clades within a population. In this paper, we show that interference strongly constrains the genetic and phenotypic…
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…
Why is the genetic code the way it is? The most successful theory states that the codon assignments minimise the effects of errors arising in primordial living systems. Here a transversion is reported that leaves invariant degeneracy in the…
We introduce a new model of evolution on a fitness landscape possessing a tunable degree of neutrality. The model allows us to study the general properties of molecular species undergoing neutral evolution. We find that a number of…
A punctuated equilibrium model of biological evolution with relative fitness between different species being the fundamental driving force of evolution is introduced. Mutation is modeled as a fitness updating cellular automaton process…
Molecular phenotypes are important links between genomic information and organismic functions, fitness, and evolution. Complex phenotypes, which are also called quantitative traits, often depend on multiple genomic loci. Their evolution…
Many cases of non-standard genetic codes are known in mitochondrial genomes. We carry out analysis of phylogeny and codon usage of organisms for which the complete mitochondrial genome is available, and we determine the most likely…
Cooperation and competition between pathogens can alter the amount of individuals affected by a co-infection. Nonetheless, the evolution of the pathogens' behavior has been overlooked. Here, we consider a co-evolutionary model where the…
Coding information is the main source of heterogeneity (non-randomness) in the sequences of bacterial genomes. This information can be naturally modeled by analysing cluster structures in the "in-phase" triplet distributions of relatively…
We study the effects of interspecific correlations in a biological coevolution model in which organisms are represented by genomes of bitstrings. We present preliminary results for this model, indicating that these correlations do not…
This paper analyzes a simplified model of viral infection and evolution using the 'grand canonical ensemble' and formalisms from statistical mechanics and thermodynamics to enumerate all possible viruses and to derive thermodynamic…
The inheritance of characteristics induced by the environment has often been opposed to the theory of evolution by natural selection. Yet, while evolution by natural selection requires new heritable traits to be produced and transmitted, it…
Plant breeding programs use data obtained from multi-environment selection experiments to produce improved varieties with the ultimate aim of maintaining high levels of genetic gain. Selection accuracy can be improved with the use of…
The effect of mechanical interactions between cells in the spreading of bacterial populations was investigated in one-dimensional space. A continuum-mechanics approach, comprising cell migration, proliferation, and exclusion processes, was…
In numerous contexts, individuals may decide whether they take actions to mitigate the spread of disease, or not. Mitigating the spread of disease requires an individual to change their routine behaviours to benefit others, resulting in a…
The coupling between evolutionary and ecological changes (eco-evolutionary dynamics) has been shown to be relevant among diverse species, and is also of interest outside of ecology, i.e. in cancer evolution. These dynamics play an important…
Consider a supercritical birth and death process where the children acquire mutations. We study the mutation rates along the ancestral lineages in a sample of size $n$ from the population at time $T$. The mutation rate is time-inhomogenous…
We consider the evolution of populations under the joint action of mutation and differential reproduction, or selection. The population is modelled as a finite-type Markov branching process in continuous time, and the associated…