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Fig. 1 | BMC Evolutionary Biology

Fig. 1

From: Structuring evolution: biochemical networks and metabolic diversification in birds

Fig. 1

The structure of a deterministic network and potential evolutionary trajectories. The possible interactions (arrows) between elements (small circles) represent potential opportunities for diversification on a deterministic network (shown in grey). The black, purple and orange shaded portions of the network show examples of different expressed networks, with each color denoting a different functional module made up of different elements and interactions. (a) Under the pathway diversification scenario, elements with the most interactions (higher connectivity) should be most conserved across networks, and the number and identity of the interactions associated with these connected elements should differ across networks. (b) Under the pathway elongation scenario, elements at the beginning of a sequential pathway of reactions should be the most conserved across networks, and the pathway length (the number of reactions that separate one element from another) and elements located further away from the start of the pathway should differ between networks. (c) Under the module diversification scenario, differences between networks are the result of the gain or loss of entire modules (unique groups of functionally coupled elements and interactions) and the gain or loss of elements would not be related to their connectivity or to their distance from a starting element in a pathway

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