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Experimental evolution

Section edited by Michael Brockhurst

This section considers studies in testing evolutionary theories by the use of controlled experiments.

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  1. Angiosperms employ an astonishing variety of visual and olfactory floral signals that are generally thought to evolve under natural selection. Those morphological and chemical traits can form highly correlated...

    Authors: Pengjuan Zu, Florian P. Schiestl, Daniel Gervasi, Xin Li, Daniel Runcie and Frédéric Guillaume

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:127

    Content type: Research article

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  3. Understanding the forces that maintain diversity across a range of scales is at the very heart of biology. Frequency-dependent processes are generally recognized as the most central process for the maintenance...

    Authors: Zorana Kurbalija Novičić, Ahmed Sayadi, Mihailo Jelić and Göran Arnqvist

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:20

    Content type: Research article

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  4. The theory of trade-off suggests that limited resources should lead to trade-off in resource intensive traits such as, immunity related and sexually selected traits in males. Alternatively, sexual exaggeration...

    Authors: Zeeshan Ali Syed, Vanika Gupta, Manas Geeta Arun, Aatashi Dhiman, Bodhisatta Nandy and Nagaraj Guru Prasad

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2020 20:13

    Content type: Research article

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  5. Neurochemicals like serotonin and dopamine play crucial roles in human cognitive and emotional functions. Vesicular monoamine transporter 1 (VMAT1) transports monoamine neurotransmitters, and its variant (136T...

    Authors: Daiki X. Sato, Yuu Ishii, Tomoaki Nagai, Kazumasa Ohashi and Masakado Kawata

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:220

    Content type: Research article

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  6. Substrate cross-feeding occurs when one organism partially consumes a primary substrate into one or more metabolites while other organisms then consume the metabolites. While pervasive within microbial communi...

    Authors: Elin E. Lilja and David R. Johnson

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:129

    Content type: Research article

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  7. It has been suggested that climate change will lead to increased environmental fluctuations, which will undoubtedly have evolutionary consequences for all biota. For instance, fluctuations can directly increas...

    Authors: Kati Saarinen, Leena Lindström and Tarmo Ketola

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:42

    Content type: Research article

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  8. A central theme in (micro)biology is understanding the molecular basis of fitness i.e. which strategies are successful under which conditions; how do organisms implement such strategies at the molecular level;...

    Authors: Claire E. Price, Filipe Branco dos Santos, Anne Hesseling, Jaakko J. Uusitalo, Herwig Bachmann, Vera Benavente, Anisha Goel, Jan Berkhout, Frank J. Bruggeman, Siewert-Jan Marrink, Manolo Montalban-Lopez, Anne de Jong, Jan Kok, Douwe Molenaar, Bert Poolman, Bas Teusink…

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2019 19:15

    Content type: Research article

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  9. Selection for a certain trait in microbes depends on the genetic background of the strain and the selection pressure of the environmental conditions acting on the cells. In contrast to the sessile state in the...

    Authors: Anne Richter, Theresa Hölscher, Patrick Pausch, Tim Sehrt, Franziska Brockhaus, Gert Bange and Ákos T Kovács

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:155

    Content type: Research article

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  10. Temperature is a major determinant of spontaneous mutation, but the precise mode, and the underlying mechanisms, of the temperature influences remain less clear. Here we used a mutation accumulation approach c...

    Authors: Xiao-Lin Chu, Bo-Wen Zhang, Quan-Guo Zhang, Bi-Ru Zhu, Kui Lin and Da-Yong Zhang

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:126

    Content type: Research article

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  11. Ovarian cancer is the second most common gynaecologic malignancy and the most common cause of death from gynaecologic cancer, especially due to diagnosis at an advanced stage, when a cure is rare. As ovarian t...

    Authors: Sofia C. Nunes, Filipa Lopes-Coelho, Sofia Gouveia-Fernandes, Cristiano Ramos, Sofia A. Pereira and Jacinta Serpa

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:97

    Content type: Research article

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  12. Adaptive responses to nutrient limitation involve mutations that increase the efficiency of usage or uptake of the limiting nutrient. However, starvation of different nutrients has contrasting effects on physi...

    Authors: Omar M. Warsi, Dan I. Andersson and Daniel E. Dykhuizen

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:72

    Content type: Research article

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  13. Recombination is widespread across the tree of life, because it helps purge deleterious mutations and creates novel adaptive traits. In prokaryotes, it often takes the form of horizontal gene transfer from a d...

    Authors: Hoi Yee Chu, Kathleen Sprouffske and Andreas Wagner

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2018 18:54

    Content type: Research article

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  14. Tumour progression involves a series of phenotypic changes to cancer cells, each of which presents therapeutic targets. Here, using techniques adapted from microbial experimental evolution, we investigate the ...

    Authors: Tiffany B. Taylor, Anastasia V. Wass, Louise J. Johnson and Phil Dash

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2017 17:268

    Content type: Research article

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  16. Steinernematid nematodes form obligate symbioses with bacteria from the genus Xenorhabdus. Together Steinernema nematodes and their bacterial symbionts successfully infect, kill, utilize, and exit their insect ho...

    Authors: John G. McMullen II, Brittany F. Peterson, Steven Forst, Heidi Goodrich Blair and S. Patricia Stock

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2017 17:100

    Content type: Research article

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  17. Theory suggests that high virulence could hinder between-host transmission of microparasites, and that virulence therefore will evolve to lower levels. Alternatively, highly virulent microparasites could also ...

    Authors: Anouk Willemsen, Mark P. Zwart and Santiago F. Elena

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2017 17:25

    Content type: Research article

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  18. Antagonistic coevolution between bacteria and their viral parasites, phage, drives continual evolution of resistance and infectivity traits through recurrent cycles of adaptation and counter-adaptation. Both p...

    Authors: Rosanna C. T. Wright, Michael A. Brockhurst and Ellie Harrison

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:227

    Content type: Research article

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  19. The impact of historical contingency, i.e. the past evolutionary history of a population, on further adaptation is mostly unknown at both the phenotypic and genomic levels. We addressed this question using a t...

    Authors: Jessica Plucain, Antonia Suau, Stéphane Cruveiller, Claudine Médigue, Dominique Schneider and Mickaël Le Gac

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:86

    Content type: Research article

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  20. Conjugative plasmids play an important role in bacterial evolution by transferring ecologically important genes within and between species. A key limit on interspecific horizontal gene transfer is plasmid host...

    Authors: Anastasia Kottara, James P. J. Hall, Ellie Harrison and Michael A. Brockhurst

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:70

    Content type: Research article

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  21. The hypothesis that circadian clocks confer adaptive advantage to organisms has been proposed based on its ubiquity across almost all levels of complexity and organization of life-forms. This thought has recei...

    Authors: K. L. Nikhil, Karatgi Ratna and Vijay Kumar Sharma

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2016 16:46

    Content type: Research article

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  22. Collagens provide structural support and guidance cues within the extracellular matrix of metazoans. Mammalian collagens XIII, XXIII and XXV form a unique subgroup of type II transmembrane proteins, each compr...

    Authors: Hongmin Tu, Pirkko Huhtala, Hang-Mao Lee, Josephine C. Adams and Taina Pihlajaniemi

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2015 15:281

    Content type: Research article

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  23. Understanding the causes and consequences of phenotypic variability is a central topic of evolutionary biology. Mutations within non-coding cis-regulatory regions are thought to be of major effect since they affe...

    Authors: Guillermo P. Bernet and Santiago F. Elena

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2015 15:274

    Content type: Research article

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  24. Short-term experiments have indicated that warmer temperatures can alter fungal biomass production and CO2 respiration, with potential consequences for soil C storage. However, we know little about the capacity o...

    Authors: Adriana L. Romero-Olivares, John W. Taylor and Kathleen K. Treseder

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2015 15:198

    Content type: Research article

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  25. In bacteria, cell size affects chromosome replication, the assembly of division machinery, cell wall synthesis, membrane synthesis and ultimately growth rate. In addition, cell size can also be a target for Da...

    Authors: Mari Yoshida, Saburo Tsuru, Naoko Hirata, Shigeto Seno, Hideo Matsuda, Bei-Wen Ying and Tetsuya Yomo

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:257

    Content type: Research article

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  26. Anthropogenic disturbances can lead to intense selection pressures on traits and very rapid evolutionary changes. Evolutionary responses to environmental changes, in turn, reflect changes in the genetic struct...

    Authors: Morgan Dutilleul, Jean-Marc Bonzom, Catherine Lecomte, Benoit Goussen, Fabrice Daian, Simon Galas and Denis Réale

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:252

    Content type: Research article

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  27. Despite the common assumption that multiple mating should in general be favored in males, but not in females, to date there is no consensus on the general impact of multiple mating on female fitness. Notably, ...

    Authors: Paolo Innocenti, Ilona Flis and Edward H Morrow

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:239

    Content type: Research article

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  28. Classic population genetics theory predicts that mixed reproductive systems, where self reproduction (selfing) and outcrossing co-exist, should not be as common as they are in nature. One means of reconciling ...

    Authors: Sara Carvalho, Patrick C Phillips and Henrique Teotónio

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:117

    Content type: Research article

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  29. Why most organisms reproduce via outcrossing rather than selfing is a central question in evolutionary biology. It has long ago been suggested that outcrossing is favoured when it facilitates adaptation to nov...

    Authors: Sara Carvalho, Ivo M Chelo, Christine Goy and Henrique Teotónio

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:116

    Content type: Research article

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  30. The development of pesticide resistance represents a global challenge to food production. Specifically for the Atlantic salmon aquaculture industry, parasitic sea lice and their developing resistance to delous...

    Authors: Lina Eva Robin Ljungfeldt, Per Gunnar Espedal, Frank Nilsen, Mette Skern-Mauritzen and Kevin Alan Glover

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:108

    Content type: Research article

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  32. It is often suggested that mate choice enhances offspring immune resistance to infectious diseases. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a study with wild-derived house mice (Mus musculus musculus) in which fema...

    Authors: Shirley Raveh, Sanja Sutalo, Kerstin E Thonhauser, Michaela Thoß, Attila Hettyey, Friederike Winkelser and Dustin J Penn

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014 14:14

    Content type: Research article

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  33. Pipo was recently described as a new ORF encoded within the genome of the Potyviridae family members (PNAS 105:5897–5902, 2008). It is embedded within the P3 cistron and is translated in the +2 reading frame rela...

    Authors: Julia Hillung, Santiago F Elena and José M Cuevas

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:249

    Content type: Research article

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  34. Hatching enzyme is a protease that digests the egg envelope, enabling hatching of the embryo. We have comprehensively studied the molecular mechanisms of the enzyme action to its substrate egg envelope, and de...

    Authors: Mari Kawaguchi, Koji Inoue, Ichiro Iuchi, Mutsumi Nishida and Shigeki Yasumasu

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:231

    Content type: Research article

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  35. Interlocus conflict predicts (a) evolution of traits, beneficial to males but detrimental to females and (b) evolution of aging and life-span under the influence of the cost of bearing these traits. However, t...

    Authors: Bodhisatta Nandy, Vanika Gupta, Sharmi Sen, Niveda Udaykumar, Manas Arun Samant, Syed Zeeshan Ali and Nagaraj Guru Prasad

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:212

    Content type: Research article

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  36. Sex presents evolutionary costs and benefits, leading to the expectation that the amount of genetic exchange should vary in conditions with contrasting cost-benefit equations. Like eukaryotes, viruses also eng...

    Authors: Samuel L Díaz-Muñoz, Olivier Tenaillon, Daniel Goldhill, Kristen Brao, Paul E Turner and Lin Chao

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:206

    Content type: Research article

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  38. Multiple infections of the same host by different strains of the same microparasite species are believed to play a crucial role during the evolution of parasite virulence. We investigated the role of specifici...

    Authors: Frida Ben-Ami and Jarkko Routtu

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:97

    Content type: Research article

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  39. Laboratory studies show that the components of sexual selection (e.g., mate choice and intrasexual competition) can profoundly affect the development and fitness of offspring. Less is known, however, about the...

    Authors: Adam C Nelson, Kevin E Colson, Steve Harmon and Wayne K Potts

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:81

    Content type: Research article

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  40. Virulence is often coupled with replicative fitness of viruses in vertebrate systems, yet the relationship between virulence and fitness of arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) in invertebrates has not been e...

    Authors: Alexander T Ciota, Dylan J Ehrbar, Amy C Matacchiero, Greta A Van Slyke and Laura D Kramer

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:71

    Content type: Research article

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  41. Previously, we showed that adaptive substitutions in one of the three promoters of the bacteriophage ϕX174 improved fitness at high-temperature by decreasing transcript levels three- to four-fold. To understan...

    Authors: Celeste J Brown, Amber D Stancik, Pavitra Roychoudhury and Stephen M Krone

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:66

    Content type: Research article

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  42. Beneficial mutations play an essential role in bacterial adaptation, yet little is known about their fitness effects across genetic backgrounds and environments. One prominent example of bacterial adaptation i...

    Authors: Alejandra Rodríguez-Verdugo, Brandon S Gaut and Olivier Tenaillon

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:50

    Content type: Research article

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  43. The importance of historical contingency in determining the potential of viral populations to evolve has been largely unappreciated. Identifying the constraints imposed by past adaptations is, however, of impo...

    Authors: Stéphanie Bedhomme, Guillaume Lafforgue and Santiago F Elena

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:46

    Content type: Research article

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  45. Explanations for bacterial biofilm persistence during antibiotic treatment typically depend on non-genetic mechanisms, and rarely consider the contribution of evolutionary processes.

    Authors: Jabus G Tyerman, José M Ponciano, Paul Joyce, Larry J Forney and Luke J Harmon

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:22

    Content type: Research article

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  46. When beneficial mutations present in different genomes spread simultaneously in an asexual population, their fixation can be delayed due to competition among them. This interference among mutations is mainly d...

    Authors: Laura Cabanillas, María Arribas and Ester Lázaro

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2013 13:11

    Content type: Research article

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  48. Phenotypic plasticity, i.e. the capacity to change the phenotype in response to changes in the environment without alteration of the genotype, is important for coping with unstable environments. In spite of th...

    Authors: Magali Leroy, Thomas Mosser, Xavier Manière, Diana Fernández Alvarez and Ivan Matic

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2012 12:187

    Content type: Research article

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  49. Viruses are exceedingly diverse in their evolved strategies to manipulate hosts for viral replication. However, despite these differences, most virus populations will occasionally experience two commonly-encou...

    Authors: Paul E Turner, Robert C McBride, Siobain Duffy, Rebecca Montville, Li-San Wang, Yul W Yang, Sun Jin Lee and Junhyong Kim

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2012 12:153

    Content type: Research article

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  50. Specialization for ecological niches is a balance of evolutionary adaptation and its accompanying tradeoffs. Here we focus on the Lenski Long-Term Evolution Experiment, which has maintained cultures of Escherichi...

    Authors: Nicholas Leiby, William R Harcombe and Christopher J Marx

    Citation: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2012 12:151

    Content type: Research article

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