67 posts · 80,711 views
Pleiotropy
67 posts
Sort by Latest Post, Most Popular
View by Condensed, Full
- April 13, 2013
- 04:26 PM
- 90 views
Can we predict evolution?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Evolution is predictable if we know population size, mutation rate, and the fitness landscape.... Read more »
Szendro IG, Franke J, de Visser JA, & Krug J. (2013) Predictability of evolution depends nonmonotonically on population size. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(2), 571-6. PMID: 23267075
Ostman B, Hintze A, & Adami C. (2012) Impact of epistasis and pleiotropy on evolutionary adaptation. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society, 279(1727), 247-56. PMID: 21697174
- October 10, 2012
- 09:52 AM
- 317 views
Ochman on bacterial evolution
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Yesterday I went to the annual Thomas S Whittam Memorial Lecture here at MSU. Howard Ochman talked about "Evolutionary Forces Affecting Bacterial Genomes", though he had changed the title to "Determinants of Genome Size and complexity.... Read more »
Kuo CH, Moran NA, & Ochman H. (2009) The consequences of genetic drift for bacterial genome complexity. Genome research, 19(8), 1450-4. PMID: 19502381
Raghavan R, Kelkar YD, & Ochman H. (2012) A selective force favoring increased G C content in bacterial genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(36), 14504-7. PMID: 22908296
- September 28, 2012
- 08:45 AM
- 179 views
Genotype-phenotype maps and mathy biology
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
... Read more »
Peter F. Stadler, & Christopher R. Stephens. (2003) Landscapes and Effective Fitness. Comm. Theor. Biol. DOI: 10.1080/08948550302439
- September 5, 2012
- 05:31 PM
- 216 views
ENCODE: What defines genomic function?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
A new wealth of articles by the ENCODE (the ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements) consortium suggest that far more of the human genome carries out some function or other, and one might conclude that very little DNA is junk.... Read more »
Joseph R. Ecker, Wendy A. Bickmore, Inês Barroso, Jonathan K. Pritchard, Yoav Gilad . (2012) Genomics: ENCODE explained. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/489052a
The ENCODE Project Consortium. (2012) An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature11247
- July 23, 2012
- 04:41 PM
- 364 views
Crossing valleys in fitness landscapes
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
With his "holey adaptive landscapes", Sergey Gavrilets (e.g. 1997) solved the problem of crossing valleys of low fitness in the fitness landscape* by positing that for high-dimensional landscapes (which is realistic - typiwrightcally the genotype consists of thousands of genes and many more DNA nucleotides) there is always a ridge between fitness "peaks" (which are then not really peaks). ... Read more »
Wright S. (1982) The shifting balance theory and macroevolution. Annual review of genetics, 1-19. PMID: 6760797
Mustonen V, & Lässig M. (2009) From fitness landscapes to seascapes: non-equilibrium dynamics of selection and adaptation. Trends in genetics : TIG, 25(3), 111-9. PMID: 19232770
Weissman DB, Desai MM, Fisher DS, & Feldman MW. (2009) The rate at which asexual populations cross fitness valleys. Theoretical population biology, 75(4), 286-300. PMID: 19285994
Bjørn Østman, Arend Hintze, & Christoph Adami. (2010) Critical properties of complex fitness landscapes. Proc. 12th Intern. Conf. on Artificial Life, H. Fellerman et al., eds. (MIT Press, 2010), pp. 126-132. arXiv: 1006.2908v1
Østman B, Hintze A, & Adami C. (2012) Impact of epistasis and pleiotropy on evolutionary adaptation. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society, 279(1727), 247-56. PMID: 21697174
- May 31, 2012
- 02:42 PM
- 437 views
The Black Queen Hypothesis
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
In the game of Hearts, the object is to not get certain cards. The most vile of them all is the dreaded black queen of spades, which is as bad as all the other bad cards put together.... Read more »
Morris JJ, Lenski RE, & Zinser ER. (2012) The Black Queen Hypothesis: evolution of dependencies through adaptive gene loss. mBio, 3(2). PMID: 22448042
- March 27, 2012
- 12:17 PM
- 563 views
Carnivores have bad taste
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Pseudogenes are genes that used to have a function, but no longer do. If a gene contributes to an important function for the organism, offspring with deleterious mutations that ruin the gene will have lower fitness, and as a result won't have as many offspring, if any at all. That mutated gene will likely not go to fixation (become prominent in the population). On the other hand, if the gene used to have a function, but no longer don't, then mutations affecting the gene won't be deleterious. Mut........ Read more »
Jiang P, Josue J, Li X, Glaser D, Li W, Brand JG, Margolskee RF, Reed DR, & Beauchamp GK. (2012) Major taste loss in carnivorous mammals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 22411809
- January 26, 2012
- 02:38 PM
- 634 views
Link between political views and physiology
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
It is becoming more and more clear that political views are in fact not completely decided by rational considerations, as common sense would have us believe. Rather, previous studies have shown a link between emotional (i.e., largely uncontrollable) responses and position on the left/right spectrum: "those on the right are ‘distrustful of differences … fear change, dread disorder, are intolerant of nonconformity, and derogate reason’."*... Read more »
Dodd MD, Balzer A, Jacobs CM, Gruszczynski MW, Smith KB, & Hibbing JR. (2012) The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 367(1589), 640-9. PMID: 22271780
- January 11, 2012
- 07:08 PM
- 738 views
What determines rates of ecological speciation?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Speciation models are the most beautiful thing in evolutionary biology. This is widely known, and those who disagree are the crazies. Other models have their place, and empirical evidence for speciation, and insights from there into how speciation takes place are crucial for progress. But real understanding of this question of questions in evolutionary biology only comes once a model is constructed and validated. It is the ultimate goal of scientific work to condense knowledge in terms we can sh........ Read more »
Birand A, Vose A, & Gavrilets S. (2012) Patterns of species ranges, speciation, and extinction. The American naturalist, 179(1), 1-21. PMID: 22173457
- November 22, 2011
- 10:45 AM
- 690 views
Reproductive species vs. ecological species
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Why are two breeds of dogs who can't mate without human assistance the same species, while two fish species, which can and do have fertile offspring, but which are intermediate in size and therefore not as good at obtaining resources as the parents, are different species?... Read more »
Rice, W., & Hostert, E. (1993) Laboratory Experiments on Speciation: What Have We Learned in 40 Years?. Evolution, 47(6), 1637. DOI: 10.2307/2410209
- November 14, 2011
- 12:07 AM
- 227 views
Speciation in the virtual social world: Facebook vs. G
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
It may just be me and the people I follow, but isn't Google+ used more for serious stuff that people want others to see, while Facebook is for whatever friends do to each other. That would make sense, I suppose, given that you can't control who follows you on G+. But does it mean that G+ and Facebook are not really competing for the same niche? Even if there are overlapping functions, as there clearly are, are the two so diverged from each other in function that they will continue to coexist sid........ Read more »
Nosil P, & Sandoval CP. (2008) Ecological niche dimensionality and the evolutionary diversification of stick insects. PloS one, 3(4). PMID: 18382680
Garant D, Kruuk LE, McCleery RH, & Sheldon BC. (2007) The effects of environmental heterogeneity on multivariate selection on reproductive traits in female great tits. Evolution; international journal of organic evolution, 61(7), 1546-59. PMID: 17598739
Gerhardt HC, & Brooks R. (2009) Experimental analysis of multivariate female choice in gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor): evidence for directional and stabilizing selection. Evolution; international journal of organic evolution, 63(10), 2504-12. PMID: 19500145
Barrick, J., Yu, D., Yoon, S., Jeong, H., Oh, T., Schneider, D., Lenski, R., & Kim, J. (2009) Genome evolution and adaptation in a long-term experiment with Escherichia coli. Nature, 461(7268), 1243-1247. DOI: 10.1038/nature08480
Østman, B., Hintze, A., & Adami, C. (2011) Impact of epistasis and pleiotropy on evolutionary adaptation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0870
- November 13, 2011
- 11:50 PM
- 532 views
Speciation in the virtual social world: Facebook vs. G+
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
It may just be me and the people I follow, but isn't Google used more for serious stuff that people want others to see, while Facebook is for whatever friends do to each other. That would make sense, I suppose, given that you can't control who follows you on G . But does it mean that G and Facebook are not really competing for the same niche? Even if there are overlapping functions, as there clearly are, are the two so diverged from each other in function that they will continue to coexist sid........ Read more »
Nosil P, & Sandoval CP. (2008) Ecological niche dimensionality and the evolutionary diversification of stick insects. PloS one, 3(4). PMID: 18382680
Garant D, Kruuk LE, McCleery RH, & Sheldon BC. (2007) The effects of environmental heterogeneity on multivariate selection on reproductive traits in female great tits. Evolution; international journal of organic evolution, 61(7), 1546-59. PMID: 17598739
Gerhardt HC, & Brooks R. (2009) Experimental analysis of multivariate female choice in gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor): evidence for directional and stabilizing selection. Evolution; international journal of organic evolution, 63(10), 2504-12. PMID: 19500145
Barrick, J., Yu, D., Yoon, S., Jeong, H., Oh, T., Schneider, D., Lenski, R., & Kim, J. (2009) Genome evolution and adaptation in a long-term experiment with Escherichia coli. Nature, 461(7268), 1243-1247. DOI: 10.1038/nature08480
Østman, B., Hintze, A., & Adami, C. (2011) Impact of epistasis and pleiotropy on evolutionary adaptation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0870
- August 13, 2011
- 09:46 PM
- 1,079 views
Scandinavians have bigger brains for better vision
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
No matter that this study proposes that people of the north have bigger brains than those at the equator merely to cope with lower levels of sunlight - it would still cause an uproar if the rather large group of people (including scientists) who regularly commit the moralistic fallacy should ever hear about it.We demonstrate a significant positive relationship between absolute latitude and human orbital volume, an index of eyeball size. Owing to tight scaling between visual system components, th........ Read more »
Pearce, E., & Dunbar, R. (2011) Latitudinal variation in light levels drives human visual system size. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0570
- June 30, 2011
- 03:29 PM
- 1,157 views
Using deleterious mutations to cross fitness valleys - as misunderstood by ID creationists
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
It is fitting that an article I just got published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B [1] has been blogged about on the ID lover's Uncommon Descent: Are Fitness Valleys Too Deep?
... Read more »
Østman, B., Hintze, A., & Adami, C. (2011) Impact of epistasis and pleiotropy on evolutionary adaptation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.0870
Chou, H., Chiu, H., Delaney, N., Segre, D., & Marx, C. (2011) Diminishing Returns Epistasis Among Beneficial Mutations Decelerates Adaptation. Science, 332(6034), 1190-1192. DOI: 10.1126/science.1203799
Khan, A., Dinh, D., Schneider, D., Lenski, R., & Cooper, T. (2011) Negative Epistasis Between Beneficial Mutations in an Evolving Bacterial Population. Science, 332(6034), 1193-1196. DOI: 10.1126/science.1203801
- June 15, 2011
- 04:37 PM
- 1,278 views
Homophobes are turned on by homosexuality
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Unfortunately I can't access the full length article of this one: Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?But it is obviously too good to miss. The abstract reads:The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35 ) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the In........ Read more »
Adams, H., Wright, L., & Lohr, B. (1996) Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105(3), 440-445. DOI: 10.1037/0021-843X.105.3.440
- May 13, 2011
- 01:14 PM
- 1,334 views
Keller shows robots evolving altruism - Nowak dismisses simulations
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
As also reported on Panda's Thumb, Laurent Keller's group have evolved robot behavior in a computer (report in Science). The robots were given the ability to share food with each other, and more related groups quickly evolved altruism, sharing food with other robots they were related to. Classical and unsurprising, at least given our theoretical understanding of the evolution of altruism.However, Martin Nowak, champion of the anti-kin-selection view, in a stunning feat of denial, dismisses the r........ Read more »
Waibel, M., Floreano, D., & Keller, L. (2011) A Quantitative Test of Hamilton's Rule for the Evolution of Altruism. PLoS Biology, 9(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000615
- March 24, 2011
- 11:59 PM
- 1,233 views
The trouble over inclusive fitness theory and eusociality
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
On one side we have the majority of evolutionary biologists who think kin selection and inclusive fitness theory as described by Hamilton and Price explain a lot of phenomena in biology, notably eusociality. Some of the more famous people squarely in this group are Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and Stuart West, but there are many more (at least 137*).... Read more »
Nowak, M., Tarnita, C., & Wilson, E. (2010) The evolution of eusociality. Nature, 466(7310), 1057-1062. DOI: 10.1038/nature09205
Abbot, P., Abe, J., Alcock, J., Alizon, S., Alpedrinha, J., Andersson, M., Andre, J., van Baalen, M., Balloux, F., Balshine, S.... (2011) Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality. Nature, 471(7339). DOI: 10.1038/nature09831
Nowak, M., Tarnita, C., & Wilson, E. (2011) Nowak et al. reply. Nature, 471(7339). DOI: 10.1038/nature09836
- February 9, 2011
- 05:55 PM
- 1,123 views
Loss of anus?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
It's nice when we are somewhat certain that evolutionary trees are accurate, so it is unsettling when researchers suggest that they aren't. This time it's Acoels, which are thought to be older than both Protostomes (mouth develops before the anus) and Deuterostomes (anus first). But now a team of evolutionary biologists is suggesting that Acoles belong within the group of Deuterostomes. This even though Acoles don't have a separate mouth and anus at all, but an opening that s........ Read more »
Philippe, H., Brinkmann, H., Copley, R., Moroz, L., Nakano, H., Poustka, A., Wallberg, A., Peterson, K., & Telford, M. (2011) Acoelomorph flatworms are deuterostomes related to Xenoturbella. Nature, 470(7333), 255-258. DOI: 10.1038/nature09676
- February 4, 2011
- 12:18 PM
- 1,310 views
Culturomics does not exist
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
'Culturomics' does not exist. As far as I'm concerned, if it isn't on Wikipedia, it doesn't exist. However, it is listed on Wikipedia's Word of the year for 2010 under the designation 'Least likely to succeed'. As an amusing side note, it also says this: Most Unnecessary: refudiate (Blend of refute and repudiate used by Sarah Palin on Twitter. The laughs.... Read more »
Michel, J., Shen, Y., Aiden, A., Veres, A., Gray, M., , ., Pickett, J., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D., Norvig, P.... (2010) Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books. Science, 331(6014), 176-182. DOI: 10.1126/science.1199644
- January 30, 2011
- 05:30 PM
- 741 views
Selection is random
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
When is the effect of a mutation neutral?
A mutation (by this I mean any change to the genotype/genome of an organism) is neutral when it does not change the fitness of the organism. This can happen in different ways:
1) A mutation (SNP) that changes one nucleotide in the protein coding sequence, but does not change the amino acid. These are known as synonymous substitutions, and (mostly*) do not affect fitness.
2) When the mutation does not change fitness, just because the genomic chang........ Read more »
Watson, R., Weinreich, D., & Wakeley, J. (2011) GENOME STRUCTURE AND THE BENEFIT OF SEX. Evolution, 65(2), 523-536. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.01144.x
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
