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?