2010/10/02 by Carlos Espinosa-Soto, Espinosa-Soto, Carlos, Olivier C. Martin +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #FOS: Biological sciences #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) #q-bio.PE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1010.0370
11 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2010/10/02 · arxiv updated 2015/03/17
Non-genetic perturbations, such as environmental change or developmental noise, can induce novel phenotypes. If an induced phenotype confers a fitness advantage, selection may promote its genetic stabilization. Non-genetic perturbations can thus initiate evolutionary innovation. Genetic variation that is not usually phenotypically visible may play an important role in this process. Populations under stabilizing selection on a phenotype that is robust to mutations can accumulate such variation. After non-genetic perturbations, this variation can become a source of new phenotypes. We here study the relationship between a phenotype's robustness to mutations and a population's potential to generate novel phenotypic variation. To this end, we use a well-studied model of transcriptional regulation circuits. Such circuits are important in many evolutionary innovations. We find that phenotypic robustness promotes phenotypic variability in response to non-genetic perturbations, but not in response to mutation. Our work suggests that non-genetic perturbations may initiate innovation more frequently in mutationally robust gene expression traits.