Gene duplication and the environmental regulation of physiology and development.

ABSTRACT: When different life stages have different environmental tolerances, development needs to be regulated so that each life stage experiences environmental conditions that are suitable for it, if fitness is to be maintained. Restricting the timing of developmental transitions to occur under specific combinations of environmental conditions is therefore adaptively important. However, impeding development can itself incur demographic and fitness costs. How do organisms regulate development and physiological processes so that they occur under the broadest range of permissive conditions? Gene duplication offers one solution: Multiple genes contribute to the same downstream process, but do so under distinct combinations of environmental conditions. We present a simple model to examine how environme

SUBMITTER: Gibbs DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4201434 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature