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Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution

BACKGROUND: Organisms use a variety of mechanisms to protect themselves against perturbations. For example, repair mechanisms fix damage, feedback loops keep homeostatic systems at their setpoints, and biochemical filters distinguish signal from noise. Such buffering mechanisms are often discussed i...

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Autor principal: Frank, Steven A.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2000348/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17925869
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001021
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author Frank, Steven A.
author_facet Frank, Steven A.
author_sort Frank, Steven A.
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description BACKGROUND: Organisms use a variety of mechanisms to protect themselves against perturbations. For example, repair mechanisms fix damage, feedback loops keep homeostatic systems at their setpoints, and biochemical filters distinguish signal from noise. Such buffering mechanisms are often discussed in terms of robustness, which may be measured by reduced sensitivity of performance to perturbations. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: I use a mathematical model to analyze the evolutionary dynamics of robustness in order to understand aspects of organismal design by natural selection. I focus on two characters: one character performs an adaptive task; the other character buffers the performance of the first character against perturbations. Increased perturbations favor enhanced buffering and robustness, which in turn decreases sensitivity and reduces the intensity of natural selection on the adaptive character. Reduced selective pressure on the adaptive character often leads to a less costly, lower performance trait. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The paradox of robustness arises from evolutionary dynamics: enhanced robustness causes an evolutionary reduction in the adaptive performance of the target character, leading to a degree of maladaptation compared to what could be achieved by natural selection in the absence of robustness mechanisms. Over evolutionary time, buffering traits may become layered on top of each other, while the underlying adaptive traits become replaced by cheaper, lower performance components. The paradox of robustness has widespread implications for understanding organismal design.
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spelling pubmed-20003482007-10-18 Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution Frank, Steven A. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Organisms use a variety of mechanisms to protect themselves against perturbations. For example, repair mechanisms fix damage, feedback loops keep homeostatic systems at their setpoints, and biochemical filters distinguish signal from noise. Such buffering mechanisms are often discussed in terms of robustness, which may be measured by reduced sensitivity of performance to perturbations. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: I use a mathematical model to analyze the evolutionary dynamics of robustness in order to understand aspects of organismal design by natural selection. I focus on two characters: one character performs an adaptive task; the other character buffers the performance of the first character against perturbations. Increased perturbations favor enhanced buffering and robustness, which in turn decreases sensitivity and reduces the intensity of natural selection on the adaptive character. Reduced selective pressure on the adaptive character often leads to a less costly, lower performance trait. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The paradox of robustness arises from evolutionary dynamics: enhanced robustness causes an evolutionary reduction in the adaptive performance of the target character, leading to a degree of maladaptation compared to what could be achieved by natural selection in the absence of robustness mechanisms. Over evolutionary time, buffering traits may become layered on top of each other, while the underlying adaptive traits become replaced by cheaper, lower performance components. The paradox of robustness has widespread implications for understanding organismal design. Public Library of Science 2007-10-10 /pmc/articles/PMC2000348/ /pubmed/17925869 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001021 Text en Steven Frank. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Frank, Steven A.
Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution
title Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution
title_full Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution
title_fullStr Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution
title_full_unstemmed Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution
title_short Maladaptation and the Paradox of Robustness in Evolution
title_sort maladaptation and the paradox of robustness in evolution
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2000348/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17925869
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001021
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