Reverse evolution in real-time(teristics reverse-evolved rapidly while ...)

Date:1/11/2009

teristics reverse-evolved rapidly, while others took longer. Reverse evolution seems to stop when the populations of flies achieve adaptation to the ancestral environment, which may not coincide with the ancestral state. In this study, we have shown that underlying these phenomena is the fact that, at the genetic level, convergence to the ancestral state is on the order of 50%, that is, on average, only half of the gene frequencies revert to the ancestral gene frequencies evolution is contingent upon history at the genetic level too'.

These findings provide further insights into the basic understanding of how evolution and diversity are generated and maintained. On the one hand, it provides evidence for evolution happening through changes in the distribution of alleles in a population (so-called standing genetic variation), from generation to generation, rather than the appearance of mutations, from one generation to the next. On the other hand, as Henrique notes, 'It has implications for the definition of biodiversity: some of the 'reversed' flies may be phenotypically identical to the ancestral flies, but they are genetically different. How then do we define biodiversity?'

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Contact: Ana Godinho agodinho@igc.gulbenkian.pt 35-121-440-7959 Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia Source:Eurekalert

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