How to translate text using browser tools
1 August 2007 RATE OF ADAPTIVE PEAK SHIFTS WITH PARTIAL GENETIC ROBUSTNESS
Yuseob Kim
Abstract

How adaptive evolution occurs with individually deleterious but jointly beneficial mutations has been one of the major problems in population genetics theory. Adaptation in this case is commonly described as a population's escape from a local peak to a higher peak on Sewall Wright's fitness landscape. Recent molecular genetic and computational studies have suggested that genetic robustness can facilitate such peak shifts. If phenotypic expressions of new mutations are suppressed under genetic robustness, mutations that are otherwise deleterious can accumulate in the population as neutral variants. When the robustness is perturbed by an environmental change or a major mutation, these variants become exposed to natural selection. It is argued that this process promotes adaptation because allelic combinations enriched under genetic robustness can then be positively selected. Here, I propose simple two- and three-locus models of adaptation with partial genetic robustness as suggested by recent studies. The waiting time until the fixation of an adaptive haplotype was observed in stochastic simulations and compared to the expectation without robustness. It is shown that peak shifts can be delayed or accelerated depending on the conditions of genetic robustness. The evolutionary significance of these processes is discussed.

Yuseob Kim "RATE OF ADAPTIVE PEAK SHIFTS WITH PARTIAL GENETIC ROBUSTNESS," Evolution 61(8), 1847-1856, (1 August 2007). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2007.00166.x
Received: 15 January 2007; Accepted: 10 April 2007; Published: 1 August 2007
JOURNAL ARTICLE
10 PAGES

This article is only available to subscribers.
It is not available for individual sale.
+ SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

KEYWORDS
Adaptation
epistatis
genetic robustness
peak shift
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission
Back to Top