| | |
| | |
Stat |
Members: 3645 Articles: 2'506'133 Articles rated: 2609
26 April 2024 |
|
| | | |
|
Article overview
| |
|
Biological evolution through mutation, selection, and drift: An introductory review | Ellen Baake
; Wilfried Gabriel
; | Date: |
23 Jul 1999 | Journal: | in: Ann. Rev. Comp. Phys. VII (D. Stauffer, ed.), pp. 203-264 (World Scientific, Singapore, 2000) | Subject: | Statistical Mechanics; Populations and Evolution | cond-mat.stat-mech q-bio.PE | Affiliation: | LMU Muenchen | Abstract: | Motivated by present activities in (statistical) physics directed towards biological evolution, we review the interplay of three evolutionary forces: mutation, selection, and genetic drift. The review addresses itself to physicists and intends to bridge the gap between the biological and the physical literature. We first clarify the terminology and recapitulate the basic models of population genetics, which describe the evolution of the composition of a population under the joint action of the various evolutionary forces. Building on these foundations, we specify the ingredients explicitly, namely, the various mutation models and fitness landscapes. We then review recent developments concerning models of mutational degradation. These predict upper limits for the mutation rate above which mutation can no longer be controlled by selection, the most important phenomena being error thresholds, Muller’s ratchet, and mutational meltdowns. Error thresholds are deterministic phenomena, whereas Muller’s ratchet requires the stochastic component brought about by finite population size. Mutational meltdowns additionally rely on an explicit model of population dynamics, and describe the extinction of populations. Special emphasis is put on the mutual relationship between these phenomena. Finally, a few connections with the process of molecular evolution are established. | Source: | arXiv, cond-mat/9907372 | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites |
|
|
No review found.
Did you like this article?
Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.
browser Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)
|
| |
|
|
|
| News, job offers and information for researchers and scientists:
| |