Thesis defence: Biophysics

Ms. Ir. M.G.J. de Vos | ingenieur in de biologie
promotor | Prof.dr.ir. S.J. Tans TNW

Emperical adaptive landscapes in variable environments

Adaptive landscapes are used as a metaphor to describe the effect of genetic interactions on phenotype or fitness, and walks on the landscape can describe the progress of evolution. Genetic interactions determine the shape of the landscape, and multipeaked landscapes can constrain adaptation to an optimal solution. So far, empirical adaptive landscapes remain scarce. Previous studies that mapped adaptive landscapes have mainly revealed single peaked landscapes, and were performed in a constant environment. Here we have investigated the effect of genetic interactions on evolution in a constant environment, and in addition we have investigated genetic interactions in variable environments. We find that the effect of the mutations heaviliy depends on the environment, thus evolution might be constrained in some environments but the same set of mutations may be beneficial in others. And interestingly, we find that constraints in multipeaked landscapes can be resolved by alternating environments.

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