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Experimental evolution

Section edited by Michael Brockhurst

This section considers studies in testing evolutionary theories by the use of controlled experiments.

Page 1 of 2

  1. The impact of genetic interaction networks on evolution is a fundamental issue. Previous studies have demonstrated that the topology of the network is determined by the properties of the cellular machinery. Fu...

    Authors: Joanna Klim, Urszula Zielenkiewicz, Marek Skoneczny, Adrianna Skoneczna, Anna Kurlandzka and Szymon Kaczanowski
    Citation: BMC Ecology and Evolution 2021 21:99
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  2. Evolution in one selective environment often latently generates phenotypic change that is manifested only later in different environments, but the complexity of behavior important to fitness in the original en...

    Authors: Olaya Rendueles and Gregory J. Velicer
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:145
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  3. Angiosperms employ an astonishing variety of visual and olfactory floral signals that are generally thought to evolve under natural selection. Those morphological and chemical traits can form highly correlated...

    Authors: Pengjuan Zu, Florian P. Schiestl, Daniel Gervasi, Xin Li, Daniel Runcie and Frédéric Guillaume
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:127
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  5. Understanding the forces that maintain diversity across a range of scales is at the very heart of biology. Frequency-dependent processes are generally recognized as the most central process for the maintenance...

    Authors: Zorana Kurbalija Novičić, Ahmed Sayadi, Mihailo Jelić and Göran Arnqvist
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:20
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  6. The theory of trade-off suggests that limited resources should lead to trade-off in resource intensive traits such as, immunity related and sexually selected traits in males. Alternatively, sexual exaggeration...

    Authors: Zeeshan Ali Syed, Vanika Gupta, Manas Geeta Arun, Aatashi Dhiman, Bodhisatta Nandy and Nagaraj Guru Prasad
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:13
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  7. Neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine play crucial roles in human cognitive and emotional functions. Vesicular monoamine transporter 1 (VMAT1) transports monoamine neurotransmitters, and its variant (136T...

    Authors: Daiki X. Sato, Yuu Ishii, Tomoaki Nagai, Kazumasa Ohashi and Masakado Kawata
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:220
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  8. Substrate cross-feeding occurs when one organism partially consumes a primary substrate into one or more metabolites while other organisms then consume the metabolites. While pervasive within microbial communi...

    Authors: Elin E. Lilja and David R. Johnson
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:129
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  9. It has been suggested that climate change will lead to increased environmental fluctuations, which will undoubtedly have evolutionary consequences for all biota. For instance, fluctuations can directly increas...

    Authors: Kati Saarinen, Leena Lindström and Tarmo Ketola
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:42
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  10. A central theme in (micro)biology is understanding the molecular basis of fitness i.e. which strategies are successful under which conditions; how do organisms implement such strategies at the molecular level;...

    Authors: Claire E. Price, Filipe Branco dos Santos, Anne Hesseling, Jaakko J. Uusitalo, Herwig Bachmann, Vera Benavente, Anisha Goel, Jan Berkhout, Frank J. Bruggeman, Siewert-Jan Marrink, Manolo Montalban-Lopez, Anne de Jong, Jan Kok, Douwe Molenaar, Bert Poolman, Bas Teusink…
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:15
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  11. Selection for a certain trait in microbes depends on the genetic background of the strain and the selection pressure of the environmental conditions acting on the cells. In contrast to the sessile state in the...

    Authors: Anne Richter, Theresa Hölscher, Patrick Pausch, Tim Sehrt, Franziska Brockhaus, Gert Bange and Ákos T Kovács
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:155
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  12. Temperature is a major determinant of spontaneous mutation, but the precise mode, and the underlying mechanisms, of the temperature influences remain less clear. Here we used a mutation accumulation approach c...

    Authors: Xiao-Lin Chu, Bo-Wen Zhang, Quan-Guo Zhang, Bi-Ru Zhu, Kui Lin and Da-Yong Zhang
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:126
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  13. Ovarian cancer is the second most common gynaecologic malignancy and the most common cause of death from gynaecologic cancer, especially due to diagnosis at an advanced stage, when a cure is rare. As ovarian t...

    Authors: Sofia C. Nunes, Filipa Lopes-Coelho, Sofia Gouveia-Fernandes, Cristiano Ramos, Sofia A. Pereira and Jacinta Serpa
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:97
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  14. Adaptive responses to nutrient limitation involve mutations that increase the efficiency of usage or uptake of the limiting nutrient. However, starvation of different nutrients has contrasting effects on physi...

    Authors: Omar M. Warsi, Dan I. Andersson and Daniel E. Dykhuizen
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:72
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  15. Recombination is widespread across the tree of life, because it helps purge deleterious mutations and creates novel adaptive traits. In prokaryotes, it often takes the form of horizontal gene transfer from a d...

    Authors: Hoi Yee Chu, Kathleen Sprouffske and Andreas Wagner
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:54
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  16. Tumour progression involves a series of phenotypic changes to cancer cells, each of which presents therapeutic targets. Here, using techniques adapted from microbial experimental evolution, we investigate the ...

    Authors: Tiffany B. Taylor, Anastasia V. Wass, Louise J. Johnson and Phil Dash
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2017 17:268
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  18. Steinernematid nematodes form obligate symbioses with bacteria from the genus Xenorhabdus. Together Steinernema nematodes and their bacterial symbionts successfully infect, kill, utilize, and exit their insect ho...

    Authors: John G. McMullen II, Brittany F. Peterson, Steven Forst, Heidi Goodrich Blair and S. Patricia Stock
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2017 17:100
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  19. Theory suggests that high virulence could hinder between-host transmission of microparasites, and that virulence therefore will evolve to lower levels. Alternatively, highly virulent microparasites could also ...

    Authors: Anouk Willemsen, Mark P. Zwart and Santiago F. Elena
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2017 17:25
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  20. Antagonistic coevolution between bacteria and their viral parasites, phage, drives continual evolution of resistance and infectivity traits through recurrent cycles of adaptation and counter-adaptation. Both p...

    Authors: Rosanna C. T. Wright, Michael A. Brockhurst and Ellie Harrison
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:227
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  21. The impact of historical contingency, i.e. the past evolutionary history of a population, on further adaptation is mostly unknown at both the phenotypic and genomic levels. We addressed this question using a t...

    Authors: Jessica Plucain, Antonia Suau, Stéphane Cruveiller, Claudine Médigue, Dominique Schneider and Mickaël Le Gac
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:86
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  22. Conjugative plasmids play an important role in bacterial evolution by transferring ecologically important genes within and between species. A key limit on interspecific horizontal gene transfer is plasmid host...

    Authors: Anastasia Kottara, James P. J. Hall, Ellie Harrison and Michael A. Brockhurst
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:70
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  23. The hypothesis that circadian clocks confer adaptive advantage to organisms has been proposed based on its ubiquity across almost all levels of complexity and organization of life-forms. This thought has recei...

    Authors: K. L. Nikhil, Karatgi Ratna and Vijay Kumar Sharma
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:46
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  24. Collagens provide structural support and guidance cues within the extracellular matrix of metazoans. Mammalian collagens XIII, XXIII and XXV form a unique subgroup of type II transmembrane proteins, each compr...

    Authors: Hongmin Tu, Pirkko Huhtala, Hang-Mao Lee, Josephine C. Adams and Taina Pihlajaniemi
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2015 15:281
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  25. Understanding the causes and consequences of phenotypic variability is a central topic of evolutionary biology. Mutations within non-coding cis-regulatory regions are thought to be of major effect since they affe...

    Authors: Guillermo P. Bernet and Santiago F. Elena
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2015 15:274
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  26. Short-term experiments have indicated that warmer temperatures can alter fungal biomass production and CO2 respiration, with potential consequences for soil C storage. However, we know little about the capacity o...

    Authors: Adriana L. Romero-Olivares, John W. Taylor and Kathleen K. Treseder
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2015 15:198
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  27. In bacteria, cell size affects chromosome replication, the assembly of division machinery, cell wall synthesis, membrane synthesis and ultimately growth rate. In addition, cell size can also be a target for Da...

    Authors: Mari Yoshida, Saburo Tsuru, Naoko Hirata, Shigeto Seno, Hideo Matsuda, Bei-Wen Ying and Tetsuya Yomo
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:257
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  28. Anthropogenic disturbances can lead to intense selection pressures on traits and very rapid evolutionary changes. Evolutionary responses to environmental changes, in turn, reflect changes in the genetic struct...

    Authors: Morgan Dutilleul, Jean-Marc Bonzom, Catherine Lecomte, Benoit Goussen, Fabrice Daian, Simon Galas and Denis Réale
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:252
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  29. Despite the common assumption that multiple mating should in general be favored in males, but not in females, to date there is no consensus on the general impact of multiple mating on female fitness. Notably, ...

    Authors: Paolo Innocenti, Ilona Flis and Edward H Morrow
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:239
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  30. Classic population genetics theory predicts that mixed reproductive systems, where self reproduction (selfing) and outcrossing co-exist, should not be as common as they are in nature. One means of reconciling ...

    Authors: Sara Carvalho, Patrick C Phillips and Henrique Teotónio
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:117
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  31. Why most organisms reproduce via outcrossing rather than selfing is a central question in evolutionary biology. It has long ago been suggested that outcrossing is favoured when it facilitates adaptation to nov...

    Authors: Sara Carvalho, Ivo M Chelo, Christine Goy and Henrique Teotónio
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:116
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  32. The development of pesticide resistance represents a global challenge to food production. Specifically for the Atlantic salmon aquaculture industry, parasitic sea lice and their developing resistance to delous...

    Authors: Lina Eva Robin Ljungfeldt, Per Gunnar Espedal, Frank Nilsen, Mette Skern-Mauritzen and Kevin Alan Glover
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:108
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  34. It is often suggested that mate choice enhances offspring immune resistance to infectious diseases. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a study with wild-derived house mice (Mus musculus musculus) in which fema...

    Authors: Shirley Raveh, Sanja Sutalo, Kerstin E Thonhauser, Michaela Thoß, Attila Hettyey, Friederike Winkelser and Dustin J Penn
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:14
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  35. Pipo was recently described as a new ORF encoded within the genome of the Potyviridae family members (PNAS 105:5897–5902, 2008). It is embedded within the P3 cistron and is translated in the +2 reading frame rela...

    Authors: Julia Hillung, Santiago F Elena and José M Cuevas
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:249
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  36. Hatching enzyme is a protease that digests the egg envelope, enabling hatching of the embryo. We have comprehensively studied the molecular mechanisms of the enzyme action to its substrate egg envelope, and de...

    Authors: Mari Kawaguchi, Koji Inoue, Ichiro Iuchi, Mutsumi Nishida and Shigeki Yasumasu
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:231
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  37. Interlocus conflict predicts (a) evolution of traits, beneficial to males but detrimental to females and (b) evolution of aging and life-span under the influence of the cost of bearing these traits. However, t...

    Authors: Bodhisatta Nandy, Vanika Gupta, Sharmi Sen, Niveda Udaykumar, Manas Arun Samant, Syed Zeeshan Ali and Nagaraj Guru Prasad
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:212
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  38. Sex presents evolutionary costs and benefits, leading to the expectation that the amount of genetic exchange should vary in conditions with contrasting cost-benefit equations. Like eukaryotes, viruses also eng...

    Authors: Samuel L Díaz-Muñoz, Olivier Tenaillon, Daniel Goldhill, Kristen Brao, Paul E Turner and Lin Chao
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:206
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  40. Multiple infections of the same host by different strains of the same microparasite species are believed to play a crucial role during the evolution of parasite virulence. We investigated the role of specifici...

    Authors: Frida Ben-Ami and Jarkko Routtu
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:97
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  41. Laboratory studies show that the components of sexual selection (e.g., mate choice and intrasexual competition) can profoundly affect the development and fitness of offspring. Less is known, however, about the...

    Authors: Adam C Nelson, Kevin E Colson, Steve Harmon and Wayne K Potts
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:81
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  42. Virulence is often coupled with replicative fitness of viruses in vertebrate systems, yet the relationship between virulence and fitness of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) in invertebrates has not been e...

    Authors: Alexander T Ciota, Dylan J Ehrbar, Amy C Matacchiero, Greta A Van Slyke and Laura D Kramer
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:71
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  43. Previously, we showed that adaptive substitutions in one of the three promoters of the bacteriophage ϕX174 improved fitness at high-temperature by decreasing transcript levels three- to four-fold. To understan...

    Authors: Celeste J Brown, Amber D Stancik, Pavitra Roychoudhury and Stephen M Krone
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:66
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  44. Beneficial mutations play an essential role in bacterial adaptation, yet little is known about their fitness effects across genetic backgrounds and environments. One prominent example of bacterial adaptation i...

    Authors: Alejandra Rodríguez-Verdugo, Brandon S Gaut and Olivier Tenaillon
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:50
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  45. The importance of historical contingency in determining the potential of viral populations to evolve has been largely unappreciated. Identifying the constraints imposed by past adaptations is, however, of impo...

    Authors: Stéphanie Bedhomme, Guillaume Lafforgue and Santiago F Elena
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:46
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  47. Explanations for bacterial biofilm persistence during antibiotic treatment typically depend on non-genetic mechanisms, and rarely consider the contribution of evolutionary processes.

    Authors: Jabus G Tyerman, José M Ponciano, Paul Joyce, Larry J Forney and Luke J Harmon
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:22
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  48. When beneficial mutations present in different genomes spread simultaneously in an asexual population, their fixation can be delayed due to competition among them. This interference among mutations is mainly d...

    Authors: Laura Cabanillas, María Arribas and Ester Lázaro
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:11
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  50. Phenotypic plasticity, i.e. the capacity to change the phenotype in response to changes in the environment without alteration of the genotype, is important for coping with unstable environments. In spite of th...

    Authors: Magali Leroy, Thomas Mosser, Xavier Manière, Diana Fernández Alvarez and Ivan Matic
    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2012 12:187
    Content type: Research article Published on:
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