Evidence map›Paper›PMID 24505262›Full record

ArticlePloS one2014

The arrival of the frequent: how bias in genotype-phenotype maps can steer populations to local optima.

Steffen Schaper, Ard A Louis

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
45citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

45 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Emergence Biases in Molecular Evolution.Genome biology and evolution · 2026
    Review
  2. Review
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  4. Hierarchical genotype networks and incipient ecological speciation in Q[Formula: see text] phage quasispecies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
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  13. Mutation bias and the predictability of evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023
    Review
  14. Article
  15. Article
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  19. Symmetry and simplicity spontaneously emerge from the algorithmic nature of evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022
    Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Steffen SchaperRudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Ard A LouisRudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Genotype-phenotype (GP) maps specify how the random mutations that change genotypes generate variation by altering phenotypes, which, in turn, can trigger selection. Many GP maps share the following general properties: 1) The total number of genotypes N(G) is much larger than the number of selectable phenotypes; 2) Neutral exploration changes the variation that is accessible to the population; 3) The distribution of phenotype frequencies F(p)=N(p)/N(G), with N(p) the number of genotypes mapping onto phenotype p, is highly biased: the majority of genotypes map to only a small minority of the phenotypes. Here we explore how these properties affect the evolutionary dynamics of haploid Wright-Fisher models that are coupled to a random GP map or to a more complex RNA sequence to secondary structure map. For both maps the probability of a mutation leading to a phenotype p scales to first order as F(p), although for the RNA map there are further correlations as well. By using mean-field theory, supported by computer simulations, we show that the discovery time T(p) of a phenotype p similarly scales to first order as 1/F(p) for a wide range of population sizes and mutation rates in both the monomorphic and polymorphic regimes. These differences in the rate at which variation arises can vary over many orders of magnitude. Phenotypic variation with a larger F(p) is therefore be much more likely to arise than variation with a small F(p). We show, using the RNA model, that frequent phenotypes (with larger F(p)) can fix in a population even when alternative, but less frequent, phenotypes with much higher fitness are potentially accessible. In other words, if the fittest never 'arrive' on the timescales of evolutionary change, then they can't fix. We call this highly non-ergodic effect the 'arrival of the frequent'.

Indexed as

Gene-Environment InteractionGenotypeModels, GeneticPhenotype

Identifiers

PMID24505262
PMCPMC3914804

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.