A case study in evolutionary contingency

Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Zachary D Blount

Abstract

Biological evolution is a fundamentally historical phenomenon in which intertwined stochastic and deterministic processes shape lineages with long, continuous histories that exist in a changing world that has a history of its own. The degree to which these characteristics render evolution historically contingent, and evolutionary outcomes thereby unpredictably sensitive to history has been the subject of considerable debate in recent decades. Microbial evolution experiments have proven among the most fruitful means of empirically investigating the issue of historical contingency in evolution. One such experiment is the Escherichia coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE), in which twelve populations founded from the same clone of E. coli have evolved in parallel under identical conditions. Aerobic growth on citrate (Cit(+)), a novel trait for E. coli, evolved in one of these populations after more than 30,000 generations. Experimental replays of this population's evolution from various points in its history showed that the Cit(+) trait was historically contingent upon earlier mutations that potentiated the trait by rendering it mutationally accessible. Here I review this case of evolutionary contingency and discuss what it im...Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 28, 2019·Trends in Ecology & Evolution·Rees Kassen
May 16, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Emilie J RichardsChristopher H Martin
Jul 1, 2021·Clinical Microbiology Reviews·F BaqueroT M Coque

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