How the Mutational-Selection Interplay Organizes the Fitness Landscape

Abstract

Fundamental questions posed in classical genetics since early 20th century are still fundamental in today post genomic age. What has changed is the availability of huge amount of molecular genetics information on a broad spectrum of species and a more powerful and rich methodological approach, particularly that one based on statistical mechanics and dynamical system theory which is providing unprecedented prediction power. Here we focus on the behavior of basic life forms such as bacteria and viruses which have small genomes and short generation times. We show that central issues of the evolutionary theory, i.e. how genotype, phenotype and fitness are related, the effect of positive and negative natural selection, the specie formation could be described by simple models which allow predictions and validation using experimental data.

Biology, Physics and Nonlinear Science

“…Neves [64] provides some rigorous results on the Eigen quasispecies model (see above) in the so called "sharp-peak landscape", analyzing the case with a periodically changing optimal genome. In their work, F. Bagnoli and P. Liò [4] discuss how the interplay of mutations and selection (i.e. of the two basic ingredients of Evolution) organizes the fitness landscape.…”