Environmental noise, genetic diversity and the evolution of evolvability and robustness in model gene networks.

ABSTRACT: The ability of organisms to adapt and persist in the face of environmental change is accepted as a fundamental feature of natural systems. More contentious is whether the capacity of organisms to adapt (or "evolvability") can itself evolve and the mechanisms underlying such responses. Using model gene networks, I provide evidence that evolvability emerges more readily when populations experience positively autocorrelated environmental noise (red noise) compared to populations in stable or randomly varying (white noise) environments. Evolvability was correlated with increasing genetic robustness to effects on network viability and decreasing robustness to effects on phenotypic expression; populations whose networks displayed greater viability robustness and lower phenotypic robustness produ

SUBMITTER: Steiner CF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3527431 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature