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Figure 2 | BMC Evolutionary Biology

Figure 2

From: Genetic and environmental factors affecting cryptic variations in gene regulatory networks

Figure 2

A schematic example of evaluating phenotypic diversity. For simplicity, a two-dimensional space is shown; however, the phenotypic space used in our analysis was four-dimensional. The two axes denote the expression levels of phenotypic genes 1 and 2, respectively. The phenotype of an individual gives the coordinate of a point in this space. The space was divided into grid cells. The phenotypic diversity of a population was defined as the number of cells in which the individuals in the population were found. The circles and triangles denote the individuals’ phenotypes in normal and novel environments, respectively. In this example, the phenotypic diversity of the population was four in the normal environment (dark gray cells) and 13 in the novel environment (light gray cells and some dark gray cells). In this case, the number of cryptic genetic variations was calculated to be nine (i.e., 13−4).

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