CEFISES Seminar: Azat Garaev, « Constructive Neutral Evolution: A new perspective on robustness and evolvability? »

Livestream https://youtu.be/_F72fAyvUAs

Series: Work-in-Progress

Speaker: Azat Garaev (UCLouvain)

Title: « Constructive Neutral Evolution: A new perspective on robustness and evolvability? »

Abstract
Some organisms employ complex systems to perform relatively simple functions. It may be that the complexity only appears to be « unnecessary » while being beneficial, for example, by making the system more robust. However, functional complexity may indeed evolve through a series of neutral steps, as the theory of Constructive Neutral Evolution (CNE) shows. I clarify the conceptual scheme of CNE scenarios and distinguish two sub-types: Accumulation of redundant structures (such as gene duplicates) and evolution of direct buffering or editing mechanisms (e.g. RNA-editing systems). Then, I assess how a CNE explanation should be compared to an explanation by natural selection and how CNE should be tested in general. The following questions are discussed:

– Is CNE distinguishable from the selection for genetic robustness followed by mutational decay?
– How could quantitative population-genetic models help evaluating CNE’s generality and contribution to the evolution of specific traits?
– Can CNE serve as a non-adaptive null hypotheses of evolution for the « testing adaptationism » project formulated by Steven Orzack and Elliott Sober?