Background Optimality models of evolution, which ignore genetic details and focus on
natural selection, are widely used but sometimes criticized as oversimplifications. Their utility …

Optimality models assume that phenotypes evolve by natural selection largely
independently of underlying genetic mechanisms. This neglect of genetic mechanisms is …

Optimality models collapse the vagaries of genetics into simple trade-offs to calculate
phenotypes expected to evolve by natural selection. Optimality approaches are commonly …

Optimality models have a checkered history in evolutionary biology. While optimality models
have been successful in providing valuable insight into the evolution of a wide variety of …

The effect of lysis timing on bacteriophage (phage) fitness has received little theoretical or
experimental attention. Previously, the impact of lysis timing on phage fitness was studied …

Optimality models are frequently used to create expectations about phenotypic evolution
based on the fittest possible phenotype. However, they often ignore genetic details, which …

Evolutionary biologists commonly interpret adaptations of organisms by reference to a
phenotype-fitness map, a model of how different states of a phenotype affect fitness …

Optimality models constitute one of the simplest approaches to understanding phenotypic
evolution. Yet they have shortcomings that are not easily evaluated in most organisms. Most …

Researchers in evolutionary genetics recently have recognized an exciting opportunity in
decomposing beneficial mutations into their proximal, mechanistic determinants. The …

The life cycles of bacterial viruses—known as bacteriophages or phages—alternate
between the infection of individual cells, creating “virocells,” and phage existence instead as …