scholarly journals Spatial resource heterogeneity creates local hotspots of evolutionary potential

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Dolson ◽  
Charles Ofria
Keyword(s):  
Resource Heterogeneity ◽  
Evolutionary Potential

scholarly journals Spatial resource heterogeneity creates local hotspots of evolutionary potential

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Dolson ◽  
Charles Ofria
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Biological Data ◽  
Heterogeneous Environments ◽  
Digital Evolution ◽  
Resource Heterogeneity ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Local Diversity ◽  
Novel Traits

AbstractDo local conditions influence evolution’s ability to produce new traits? Biological data demonstrate that evolutionary processes can be profoundly influenced by local conditions. However, the evolution of novel traits has not been addressed in this context, owing in part to the challenges of performing the necessary experiments with natural organisms. We conduct in silico experiments with the Avida Digital Evolution Platform to address this question. We created eight different spatially heterogeneous environments and ran 100 replicates in each. Within each environment, we examined the distribution of locations where nine different focal traits first evolved. Using spatial statistics methods, we identified regions within each environment that had significantly elevated probabilities of containing the first organism with a given trait (i.e. hotspots of evolutionary potential). Having demonstrated the presence of many such hotspots, we explored three potential mechanisms that could drive the formation of these patterns: proximity of specific resources, variation in local diversity, and variation in the sequence of locations the members of an evolutionary lineage occupy. Resource proximity and local diversity appear to have minimal explanatory power. Lineage paths through space, however, show some promising preliminary trends. If we can understand the processes that create evolutionary hotspots, we will be able to craft environments that are more effective at evolving targeted traits. This capability would be useful both to evolutionary computation, and to efforts to guide biological evolution.

scholarly journals Spatial resource heterogeneity increases diversity and evolutionary potential

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily L. Dolson ◽  
Samuel G. Pérez ◽  
Randal S. Olson ◽  
Charles Ofria
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Heterogeneity ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Phenotypic Diversity ◽  
Adaptive Dynamics ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Strong Positive Correlation ◽  
Resource Heterogeneity ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Spatial Entropy ◽  
The Impact

AbstractSpatial heterogeneity is believed to be an evolutionary driver of biodiversity. Variability in the distribution of resource patches can allow an environment to support a wider variety of phenotypes for selection to act upon at the ecosystem level, which may lead to more species. However, the generality of this principle has not been thoroughly tested, as the relevant adaptive dynamics occur on evolutionary timescales. We overcame this challenge by performing experiments on populations of digital organisms in the Avida Digital Evolution Platform, in which we investigated the impact of spatial resource heterogeneity on phenotypic diversity. Since an important benefit of diversity may be increased evolutionary potential, we also tracked the probability of a complex trait evolving in the context of various levels of spatial heterogeneity. We found that spatial entropy and phenotypic diversity have a strong positive correlation and this relationship is consistent across various spatial configurations. Diversity also increases evolutionary potential, but has a much smaller impact than other components of environmental composition. The most important of these components was the mean number of resources present in locations across the environment, likely owing to the importance of building blocks for the evolution of complex features. These results suggest that a general relationship exists between spatial heterogeneity and diversity, beyond the specific ecosystems and timescales in which it has previously been studied. By examining this relationship in the context of phenotypic evolution, we advance a mechanistic understanding of the resulting dynamics. Moreover, our results suggest that the likelihood of evolving various traits can be impacted by the spatial configuration of patches in which these traits are advantageous. These findings have implications for both evolutionary biology and evolutionary computation, as generating and maintaining diversity is critical to all forms of evolution.

Shrub Size Modulates Resource Heterogeneity in a Sagebrush-Steppe Ecosystem

2020 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Lin Liu ◽  
Kari E. Veblen ◽  
Thomas A. Monaco
Keyword(s):  
Sagebrush Steppe ◽  
Resource Heterogeneity ◽  
Steppe Ecosystem

Genetic rescue by augmenting gene flow

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Frankham ◽  
Jonathan D. Ballou ◽  
Katherine Ralls ◽  
Mark D. B. Eldridge ◽  
Michele R. Dudash ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
Gene Flow ◽  
Inbreeding Coefficient ◽  
Outbreeding Depression ◽  
Genetic Rescue ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Inbred Populations ◽  
Harmful Effects

Inbreeding is reduced and genetic diversity enhanced when a small isolated inbred population is crossed to another unrelated population. Crossing can have beneficial or harmful effects on fitness, but beneficial effects predominate, and the risks of harmful ones (outbreeding depression) can be predicted and avoided. For crosses with a low risk of outbreeding depression, there are large and consistent benefits on fitness that persist across generations in outbreeding species. Benefits are greater in species that naturally outbreed than those that inbreed, and increase with the difference in inbreeding coefficient between crossed and inbred populations in mothers and zygotes. However, benefits are similar across invertebrates, vertebrates and plants. There are also important benefits for evolutionary potential of crossing between populations.

scholarly journals The serotonin transporter gene and female personality variation in a free-living passerine

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert Thys ◽  
Andrea S. Grunst ◽  
Nicky Staes ◽  
Rianne Pinxten ◽  
Marcel Eens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Serotonin Transporter ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Serotonin Transporter Gene ◽  
Female Aggression ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
Transporter Gene ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Free Living ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Age Dependent

AbstractQuantifying variation in behaviour-related genes provides insight into the evolutionary potential of repeatable among-individual variation in behaviour (i.e. personality). Yet, individuals typically also plastically adjust their behaviour in response to environmental conditions and/or age, thereby complicating the detection of genotype–phenotype associations. Here, using a population of free-living great tits (Parus major), we assessed the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the serotonin transporter gene (SERT) and two repeatable behavioural traits, i.e. female-female aggression and female hissing behaviour. For female-female aggression, a trait showing age-related plasticity, we found no evidence for associations with SERT SNPs, even when assessing potential age-dependent effects of SERT genotype on aggression. We also found no strong support for associations between SERT SNPs and hissing behaviour, yet we identified two synonymous polymorphisms (exon 13 SNP66 and exon 12 SNP144) of particular interest, each explaining about 1.3% of the total variation in hissing behaviour. Overall, our results contribute to the general understanding of the biological underpinning of complex behavioural traits and will facilitate further (meta-analytic) research on behaviour-related genes. Moreover, we emphasize that future molecular genetic studies should consider age-dependent genotype–phenotype associations for behavioural trait (co)variation, as this will vastly improve our understanding of the proximate causes and ultimate consequences of personality variation in natural populations.

scholarly journals Recombining Your Way Out of Trouble: The Genetic Architecture of Hybrid Fitness under Environmental Stress

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zebin Zhang ◽  
Devin P Bendixsen ◽  
Thijs Janzen ◽  
Arne W Nolte ◽  
Duncan Greig ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Stress ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Genetic Trait ◽  
Hybrid Fitness ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Mixed Effect Models ◽  
Hybrid Genome ◽  
Chromosome Associations ◽  
Low Coverage ◽  
Negative Epistasis

Abstract Hybridization between species can either promote or impede adaptation. But we know very little about the genetic basis of hybrid fitness, especially in nondomesticated organisms, and when populations are facing environmental stress. We made genetically variable F2 hybrid populations from two divergent Saccharomyces yeast species. We exposed populations to ten toxins and sequenced the most resilient hybrids on low coverage using ddRADseq to investigate four aspects of their genomes: 1) hybridity, 2) interspecific heterozygosity, 3) epistasis (positive or negative associations between nonhomologous chromosomes), and 4) ploidy. We used linear mixed-effect models and simulations to measure to which extent hybrid genome composition was contingent on the environment. Genomes grown in different environments varied in every aspect of hybridness measured, revealing strong genotype–environment interactions. We also found selection against heterozygosity or directional selection for one of the parental alleles, with larger fitness of genomes carrying more homozygous allelic combinations in an otherwise hybrid genomic background. In addition, individual chromosomes and chromosomal interactions showed significant species biases and pervasive aneuploidies. Against our expectations, we observed multiple beneficial, opposite-species chromosome associations, confirmed by epistasis- and selection-free computer simulations, which is surprising given the large divergence of parental genomes (∼15%). Together, these results suggest that successful, stress-resilient hybrid genomes can be assembled from the best features of both parents without paying high costs of negative epistasis. This illustrates the importance of measuring genetic trait architecture in an environmental context when determining the evolutionary potential of genetically diverse hybrid populations.

Integrating evolutionary potential and ecological function into agricultural seed production to meet demands for the decade of restoration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Leger ◽  
Alison C. Agneray ◽  
Owen W. Baughman ◽  
E. Charles Brummer ◽  
Todd E. Erickson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seed Production ◽  
Ecological Function ◽  
Evolutionary Potential
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