Search
Results
-
Understanding the Evolutionary Fate of Finite Populations: The Dynamics of Mutational Effects
(2007)PLoS BiologyThe most consistent result in more than two decades of experimental evolution is that the fitness of populations adapting to a constant environment does not increase indefinitely, but reaches a plateau. Using experimental evolution with bacteriophage, we show here that the converse is also true. In populations small enough such that drift overwhelms selection and causes fitness to decrease, fitness declines down to a plateau. We demonstrate ...Journal Article -
Quantifying Organismal Complexity using a Population Genetic Approach
(2007)PLoS ONEBackground Various definitions of biological complexity have been proposed: the number of genes, cell types, or metabolic processes within an organism. As knowledge of biological systems has increased, it has become apparent that these metrics are often incongruent. Methodology Here we propose an alternative complexity metric based on the number of genetically uncorrelated phenotypic traits contributing to an organism's fitness. This ...Journal Article