Recombination dramatically speeds up evolution of finite populations

Elisheva Cohen, David A. Kessler, Herbert Levine

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64 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study the role of recombination, in the form of bacterial transformation, in speeding up Darwinian evolution. This is done by adding a new process to a previously studied Markov model of evolution on a smooth fitness landscape; this new process allows alleles to be exchanged with those in the surrounding medium. Our results, both numerical and analytic, indicate that, for a wide range of intermediate population sizes, recombination dramatically speeds up the rate of evolutionary advance.

Original languageEnglish
Article number098102
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume94
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 11 Mar 2005

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