ArticleGenetics2004
The population genetic theory of hidden variation and genetic robustness.
Article in Genetics, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 103 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
103 citing papers in PubMed.
- Increased adaptive potential in novel environments can be predicted from genetic variance in development time expressed in native environments.Evolution letters · 2026Article
- Canalized to heat, plastic to cold: adaptive coordination of leaf and seed strategies in populations spanning an elevational gradient.The New phytologist · 2026Article
- Gim3 buffers and potentiates de novo mutations that affect fluconazole susceptibility in yeast.EMBO reports · 2026Article
- Evolution of Plasticity in Response to Ethanol Between Recently Separated Populations ofEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Evolvability: progress and key questions.Bioscience · 2025Review
- The reliability of environmental cues shape learning and selection against deleterious alleles in seed beetles.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Macroevolution along developmental lines of least resistance in fly wings.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Plasticity and environment-specific relationships between gene expression and fitness in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Emergence of phenotypic plasticity through epigenetic mechanisms.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Environmental effects on genetic variance are likely to constrain adaptation in novel environments.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Mutational robustness and the role of buffer genes in evolvability.The EMBO journal · 2024Review
- Plasticity and environment-specific relationships between gene expression and fitness inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- The effect of mutational robustness on the evolvability of multicellular organisms and eukaryotic cells.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Article
- The genetic basis and adult reproductive consequences of developmental thermal plasticity.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Co-option of stress mechanisms in the origin of evolutionary novelties.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
- Article
- A model of developmental canalization, applied to human cranial form.PLoS computational biology · 2021Article
- How does the strength of selection influence genetic correlations?Evolution letters · 2020Article
- Speciation and the developmental alarm clock.eLife · 2020Review
43 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
One of the most solid generalizations of transmission genetics is that the phenotypic variance of populations carrying a major mutation is increased relative to the wild type. At least some part of this higher variance is genetic and due to release of previously hidden variation. Similarly, stressful environments also lead to the expression of hidden variation. These two observations have been considered as evidence that the wild type has evolved robustness against genetic variation, i.e., genetic canalization. In this article we present a general model for the interaction of a major mutation or a novel environment with the additive genetic basis of a quantitative character under stabilizing selection. We introduce an approximation to the genetic variance in mutation-selection-drift balance that includes the previously used stochastic Gaussian and house-of-cards approximations as limiting cases. We then show that the release of hidden genetic variation is a generic property of models with epistasis or genotype-environment interaction, regardless of whether the wild-type genotype is canalized or not. As a consequence, the additive genetic variance increases upon a change in the environment or the genetic background even if the mutant character state is as robust as the wild-type character. Estimates show that this predicted increase can be considerable, in particular in large populations and if there are conditionally neutral alleles at the loci underlying the trait. A brief review of the relevant literature suggests that the assumptions of this model are likely to be generic for polygenic traits. We conclude that the release of hidden genetic variance due to a major mutation or environmental stress does not demonstrate canalization of the wild-type genotype.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.