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SUMMARY:A counter to the adaptationist narrative: the importance of &quot\
 ;entropy&quot\; and population size in evolution - Bhavin  Khatri (Imperia
 l College London)
DTSTART:20231201T110000Z
DTEND:20231201T120000Z
UID:TALK208744@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Evolution underpins and relates all the diversity of life on E
 arth. The fuel of evolution is phenotypic or functional variation and desp
 ite the huge successes of evolutionary theory over the past century there 
 is a glaring omission\, which is still yet to be fully addressed\, and tha
 t is the ability to predict what variation can arise. In this talk I will 
 consider simple models of genotype-phenotype maps based on biophysical pri
 nciples and how redundancy/entropy of the mapping interplays with genetic 
 drift (finite population size fluctuations)\, and leads to non-optimality 
 in a very general way. A classic example is the empirically observed margi
 nal stability of proteins\, for which many apaptionist explanations have b
 een proposed &mdash\; however\, when viewed from the perpspective of genot
 ype-phenotype maps\, it is simply a consequence of a balance between compe
 ting forces of selection and genetic drift &mdash\; amplified by the entro
 py phenotypes &mdash\; countering the adaptionist narrative that marginal 
 stability has evolved for a specific purpose. I will then explore some of 
 the predictions of such models\, including how speciation can become more 
 rapid for smaller populations.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Newton Institute
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