Urbana Campus Research Calendar (OVCRI)

Speaker: Carl Veller (University of Chicago)

Title: Quantitative system drift

Abstract: The theory of system drift, initially proposed in developmental genetics, holds that the components of a system can evolve (and therefore diverge between species) despite selective constraint on their combined result. We provide a population genetic justification for this theory, proving mathematically that when the components of a quantitative system are genetically variable, their contributions to the system will drift over time in a way that is qualitatively identical to neutral genetic drift. To demonstrate the generality of our results, we apply them to four different subfields of evolution and ecology: speciation genetics, interspecies mutualisms, the evolution of gene expression, and transitions between sex-determining systems.