Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems / / Andreas Wagner.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Wagner, Andreas,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2013]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Series: Princeton Studies in Complexity ; 24
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (368 p.) :; 22 halftones. 51 line illus.

All living things are remarkably complex, yet their DNA is unstable, undergoing countless random mutations over generations. Despite this instability, most animals do not grow two heads or die, plants continue to thrive, and bacteria continue to divide. Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems tackles this perplexing paradox. The book explores why genetic changes do not cause organisms to fail catastrophically and how evolution shapes organisms' robustness. Andreas Wagner looks at this problem from the ground up, starting with the alphabet of DNA, the genetic code, RNA, and protein molecules, moving on to genetic networks and embryonic development, and working his way up to whole organisms. He then develops an evolutionary explanation for robustness. Wagner shows how evolution by natural selection preferentially finds and favors robust solutions to the problems organisms face in surviving and reproducing. Such robustness, he argues, also enhances the potential for future evolutionary innovation. Wagner also argues that robustness has less to do with organisms having plenty of spare parts (the redundancy theory that has been popular) and more to do with the reality that mutations can change organisms in ways that do not substantively affect their fitness. Unparalleled in its field, this book offers the most detailed analysis available of all facets of robustness within organisms. It will appeal not only to biologists but also to engineers interested in the design of robust systems and to social scientists concerned with robustness in human communities and populations.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Figures -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- PART I: ROBUSTNESS BELOW THE GENE LEVEL -- 2. The Genetic Alphabet -- 3. The Genetic Code -- 4. RNA Structure -- 5. Proteins and Point Mutations -- 6. Proteins and Recombination -- PART II: ROBUSTNESS ABOVE THE GENE LEVEL -- 7. Regulatory DNA Regions and Their Reorganization in Evolution -- 8. Metabolic Pathways -- 9. Metabolic Networks -- 10. Drosophila Segmentation and Other Gene Regulatory Networks -- 11. Phenotypic Traits, Cryptic Variation, and Human Diseases -- 12. The Many Ways of Building the Same Body -- PART III: COMMON PRINCIPLES -- 13. Neutral Spaces -- 14. Evolvability and Neutral Mutations -- 15. Redundancy of Parts or Distributed Robustness? -- 16. Robustness as an Evolved Adaptation to Mutations -- 17. Robustness as an Evolved Adaptation to Environmental Change and Noise -- 18. Robustness and Fragility: Advantages to Variation and Trade-offs -- PART IV: ROBUSTNESS BEYOND THE ORGANISM -- 19. Robustness in Natural Systems and Self-Organization -- 20. Robustness in Man-made Systems -- Epilogue: Seven Open Questions for Systems Biology -- Bibliography -- Index