Article ID: CBB801728986

A case study in evolutionary contingency (2016)

unapi

Biological evolution is a fundamentally historical phenomenon in which intertwined stochastic and deterministic processes shape lineages with long, continuous histories that exist in a changing world that has a history of its own. The degree to which these characteristics render evolution historically contingent, and evolutionary outcomes thereby unpredictably sensitive to history has been the subject of considerable debate in recent decades. Microbial evolution experiments have proven among the most fruitful means of empirically investigating the issue of historical contingency in evolution. One such experiment is the Escherichia coli Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE), in which twelve populations founded from the same clone of E. coli have evolved in parallel under identical conditions. Aerobic growth on citrate (Cit+), a novel trait for E. coli, evolved in one of these populations after more than 30,000 generations. Experimental replays of this population's evolution from various points in its history showed that the Cit+ trait was historically contingent upon earlier mutations that potentiated the trait by rendering it mutationally accessible. Here I review this case of evolutionary contingency and discuss what it implies about the importance of historical contingency arising from the core processes of evolution.

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Authors & Contributors
Hesketh, Ian
Winslow, Russell
Fullilove, Courtney
Forterre, Patrick
Abergel, Chantal
Keck, Frédéric
Concepts
Microbiology
Evolution
History as a discipline; chronology; study of the past
Biology
Contingency (philosophy)
Historical method
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
Places
Hong Kong
Singapore
United States
China
Taiwan
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