TY - JOUR
T1 - On the nature and evolutionary impact of phenotypic robustness mechanisms
AU - Siegal, Mark L.
AU - Leu, Jun Yi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved.
Copyright:
Copyright 2014 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2014/11/23
Y1 - 2014/11/23
N2 - Biologists have long observed that physiological and developmental processes are insensitive, or robust, to many genetic and environmental perturbations. A complete understanding of the evolutionary causes and consequences of this robustness is lacking. Recent progress has been made in uncovering the regulatory mechanisms that underlie environmental robustness in particular. Less is known about robustness to the effects of mutations, and indeed the evolution of mutational robustness remains a controversial topic. The controversy has spread to related topics, in particular the evolutionary relevance of cryptic genetic variation. This review aims to synthesize current understanding of robustness mechanisms and to cut through the controversy by shedding light on what is and is not known about mutational robustness. Some studies have confused mutational robustness with nonadditive interactions between mutations (epistasis). We conclude that a profitable way forward is to focus investigations (and rhetoric) less on mutational robustness and more on epistasis.
AB - Biologists have long observed that physiological and developmental processes are insensitive, or robust, to many genetic and environmental perturbations. A complete understanding of the evolutionary causes and consequences of this robustness is lacking. Recent progress has been made in uncovering the regulatory mechanisms that underlie environmental robustness in particular. Less is known about robustness to the effects of mutations, and indeed the evolution of mutational robustness remains a controversial topic. The controversy has spread to related topics, in particular the evolutionary relevance of cryptic genetic variation. This review aims to synthesize current understanding of robustness mechanisms and to cut through the controversy by shedding light on what is and is not known about mutational robustness. Some studies have confused mutational robustness with nonadditive interactions between mutations (epistasis). We conclude that a profitable way forward is to focus investigations (and rhetoric) less on mutational robustness and more on epistasis.
KW - canalization
KW - conditional neutrality
KW - cryptic genetic variation
KW - epistasis
KW - genotype networks
KW - macroenvironmental variation
KW - microenvironmental variation
KW - mutational robustness
KW - phenotypic plasticity
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U2 - 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-120213-091705
DO - 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-120213-091705
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84913536210
VL - 45
SP - 495
EP - 517
JO - Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
JF - Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
SN - 1543-592X
ER -