Fluctuating environments select for short-term phenotypic variation leading to long-term exploration.

ABSTRACT: Genetic spaces are often described in terms of fitness landscapes or genotype-to-phenotype maps, where each genetic sequence is associated with phenotypic properties and linked to other genotypes that are a single mutational step away. The positions close to a genotype make up its "mutational landscape" and, in aggregate, determine the short-term evolutionary potential of a population. Populations with wider ranges of phenotypes in their mutational neighborhood are known to be more evolvable. Likewise, those with fewer phenotypic changes available in their local neighborhoods are more mutationally robust. Here, we examine whether forces that change the distribution of phenotypes available by mutation profoundly alter subsequent evolutionary dynamics. We compare evolved populations of digit

SUBMITTER: Canino-Koning R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6474582 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature