Genotypic but not phenotypic historical contingency revealed by viral experimental evolution.

Bedhomme, Stéphanie; Lafforgue, Guillaume; Elena, Santiago F

Genotypic but not phenotypic historical contingency revealed by viral experimental evolution.

2013

Bedhomme, Stéphanie | Lafforgue, Guillaume | Elena, Santiago F

The present experiment reinforces the idea that the answer to the question "How important is historical contingency in evolution?" strongly depends on the level of integration of the traits studied. A strong historical contingency was found for TEV genotype, whereas a weak effect of on phenotypic evolution was revealed. In an applied context, our results imply that viruses are not easily trapped into suboptimal phenotypes and that (re)emergence is not evolutionarily constrained.

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