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Figure 1 | BMC Evolutionary Biology

Figure 1

From: Phenotypic effect of mutations in evolving populations of RNA molecules

Figure 1

Schematic representation of optimized, adapting, and perturbed populations in a simple fitness landscape. The target structure S shown in the upper left corner represents the optimal adaptive solution. The distribution of phenotypes of an optimized population resides close to the optimum, where mutations with positive and negative effect on fitness (green arrows) compensate each other. An adapting population on its way to optimization is usually more dispersed in phenotype space, and beneficial mutations have a stronger effect than deleterious ones (yellow arrows). A population perturbed through severe bottlenecks is systematically displaced from equilibrium. Its ability to recover and survive in the long run depends on the frequency with which bottlenecks occur: for overly frequent bottlenecks, the population is pushed increasingly further from optimal states and eventually becomes extinct.

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