MMEE2024

Mathematical Models in Ecology and Evolution

July 15-18, 2024
Vienna, AUSTRIA

"The effects of pleiotropy in adaptation"

Schlötterer, Christian

Although there is a broad consensus that pleiotropy is widespread, the debate continues as to how common the effects of pleiotropy are. On the one hand, functional tests have shown that the modularity of genes may limit the effect of a mutation to a few phenotypes. On the other hand, the omnigenic model developed in the wake of large genome-wide association studies suggests that pleiotropy is common, although the effects may be quite small. Almost nothing is known about how pleiotropy shapes the selective response in populations adapting to a new environment. I will talk about a series of experimental evolution studies in Drosophila that have provided new insights into the role of pleiotropy in genomic and transcriptomic responses during adaptation to a novel environment.

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