Canalization in evolutionary genetics: a stabilizing theory?

Abstract

Canalization is an elusive concept. The notion that biological systems ought to evolve to a state of higher stability against mutational and environmental perturbations seems simple enough, but has been exceedingly difficult to prove. Part of the problem has been the lack of a definition of canalization that incorporates an evolutionary genetic perspective and provides a framework for both mathematical and empirical study. After briefly reviewing the importance of canalization in studies of evolution and development, we aim, with this essay, to outline a research program that builds upon the definition of canalization as the reduction in variability of a trait, and uses molecular genetic approaches to shed light on the problems of canalization.

Keywords

TraitPerspective (graphical)Evolutionary biologySimple (philosophy)BiologyHuman evolutionary geneticsBiological evolutionEvolutionary theoryComputer scienceEpistemologyGeneticsArtificial intelligenceGenomePhilosophy

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

Parsimony in Systematics: Biological and Statistical Issues

Joe Felsenstein

Quite recently has become the favored method for inferring phylogenies (evolutionary trees). The accompanying article by Elliott Sober discusses the philosophical issues relati...

1983 Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 347 citations

Empirical threshold values for quantitative trait mapping.

Gary A. Churchill , R. W. Doerge

Abstract The detection of genes that control quantitative characters is a problem of great interest to the genetic mapping community. Methods for locating these quantitative tra...

1994 Genetics 4999 citations

On the Theory and Computation of Evolutionary Distances

Peter H. Sellers

This paper gives a formal definition of the biological concept of evolutionary distance and an algorithm to compute it. For any set S of finite sequences of varying lengths this...

1974 SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics 485 citations

The ages of alleles and a coalescent

Peter Donnelly , Simon Tavaré

A new coalescent is introduced to study the genealogy of a sample from the infinite-alleles model of population genetics. This coalescent also records the age ordering of allele...

1986 Advances in Applied Probability 244 citations

Model Selection and Model Averaging in Phylogenetics: Advantages of Akaike Information Criterion and Bayesian Approaches Over Likelihood Ratio Tests

David Posada , Thomas R. Buckley

Model selection is a topic of special relevance in molecular phylogenetics that affects many, if not all, stages of phylogenetic inference. Here we discuss some fundamental conc...

2004 Systematic Biology 3936 citations

Publication Info

Year: 2000
Type: review
Volume: 22
Issue: 4
Pages: 372-380
Citations: 349
Access: Closed

External Links