Riederer, Jana, J.M. (2020) Evolution of Evolvability. Master's Research Project 1, Ecology and Evolution.
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Abstract
The project approaches the question of how evolvability may evolve from three different angles: evolution of mutation rates, evolution of death rates, and evolution of a plastic trait under episodic selection. Part 1 finds evolution of elevated mutation rates under environmental fluctuations, facilitated by population dynamics displaying repeated population crashes followed by repeated founding events. Parameter combinations that heighten these population dynamics, such as selection gradients and environmental oscillation speed, further mutation rate evolution. Part 2 investigates the effect of kin and evolvability selection on death rates. As death rates universally evolve low values resulting in functional immortality, no strong effect of evolvability selection can be observed. However, investigating the population dynamics more closely reveals that during the recovery from population crashes the death rate increases disproportionally often – potentially a subtle and transient signature of selection for evolvability. Part 3 investigates (in collaboration with the research group of Dr. Visser) apparent violations of Dollo’s law of irreversibility, which states that complex adaptations once lost in evolution will not be regained. Here, we argue that the logic underlying Dollo’s law fails in cases of ‘plastic’ traits. We show that plasticity can not only explain supposed violations of Dollo’s law, but also the maintenance of adaptations to rarely occurring extreme events.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master's Research Project 1) |
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| Supervisor name: | Weissing, F.J. and Eldijk, T.J.B. van |
| Degree programme: | Ecology and Evolution |
| Thesis type: | Master's Research Project 1 |
| Language: | English |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Jul 2020 09:17 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Jul 2020 09:17 |
| URI: | https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/22741 |
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