ReviewTheory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften2026
Ghost trade-offs: negative correlations between beneficial traits may be caused by other mechanisms than trade-offs.
Review in Theory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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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.
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Abstract
Although trade-offs are ubiquitous in living nature, they often remain concealed from researchers. Here I describe an opposite possibility: a trade-off may be apparent as a negative across-population correlation between beneficial traits, but not actually present. I describe two simple and mutually non-exclusive mechanisms by which such "ghost trade-offs" can emerge: (a) elimination of the least fit ("double-weak") genotypes, while the moderately fit ("single-weak") trait combinations survive, and (b) evolutionary suicide, i.e., extinction of the most fit ("double-fit") lineages. Such "ghost trade-offs" may be common in nature and should be recognized and distinguished from real trade-offs.
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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.