Adaptation from Standing Genetic Variation to a Moving Phenotypic Optimum
HIGHLIGHTED ARTICLE GENETICS | INVESTIGATION Catch Me if You Can: Adaptation from Standing Genetic Variation to a Moving Phenotypic Optimum Sebastian Matuszewski,*,1 Joachim Hermisson,*,† and Michael Kopp‡ *Mathematics and BioSciences Group, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria, †Max F. Perutz Laboratories, A-1030 Vienna, Austria, and ‡Aix Marseille Université, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centrale Marseille, I2M, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7373, 13453 Marseille, France ABSTRACT Adaptation lies at the heart of Darwinian evolution. Accordingly, numerous studies have tried to provide a formal framework for the description of the adaptive process. Of these, two complementary modeling approaches have emerged: While so- called adaptive-walk models consider adaptation from the successive fixation of de novo mutations only, quantitative genetic models assume that adaptation proceeds exclusively from preexisting standing genetic variation. The latter approach, however, has focused on short-term evolution of population means and variances rather than on the statistical properties of adaptive substitutions. Our aim is to combine these two approaches by describing the ecological and genetic factors that determine the genetic basis of adaptation from standing genetic variation in terms of the effect-size distribution of individual alleles. Specifically, we consider the evolution of a quantitative trait to a gradually changing environment. By means of analytical approximations, we derive the distribution
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