Present Day Biology seen in the Looking Glass of Physics of Complexity

Virus Evolution on Fitness Landscapes

The landscape paradigm is revisited in the light of evolution in simple systems. A brief overview of different classes of fitness landscapes is followed by a more detailed discussion of the RNA model, which is currently the only evolutionary model that allows for a comprehensive molecular analysis of a fitness landscape. Neutral networks of genotypes are indispensable for the success of evolution. Important insights into the evolutionary mechanism are gained by considering the topology of sequence and shape spaces. The dynamic concept of molecular quasispecies is viewed in the light of the landscape paradigm. The distribution of fitness values in state space is mirrored by the population structures of mutant distributions. Two classes of thresholds for replication error or mutations are important: (i) the-conventional-genotypic error threshold, which separates ordered replication from random drift on neutral networks, and (ii) a phenotypic error threshold above which the molecular phenotype is lost. Empirical landscapes are reviewed and finally, the implications of the landscape concept for virus evolution are discussed.

Quasispecies on Fitness Landscapes

Selection-mutation dynamics is studied as adaptation and neutral drift on abstract fitness landscapes. Various models of fitness landscapes are introduced and analyzed with respect to the stationary mutant distributions adopted by populations upon them. The concept of quasispecies is introduced, and the error threshold phenomenon is analyzed. Complex fitness landscapes with large scatter of fitness values are shown to sustain error thresholds. The phenomenological theory of the quasispecies introduced in 1971 by Eigen is compared to approximation-free numerical computations. The concept of strong quasispecies understood as mutant distributions, which are especially stable against changes in mutations rates, is presented. The role of fitness neutral genotypes in quasispecies is discussed.