Fitness landscapes have proven to be a valuable concept in evolutionary biology,
combinatorial optimization, and the physics of disordered systems. A fitness landscape is a …

RNA viruses have an extremely high mutation rate, and we argue that the most plausible
explanation for this is a trade-off with replication speed. We suggest that research into further …

Mutation is the basis of adaptation. Yet, most mutations are detrimental, and elevating
mutation rates will impair a population's fitness in the short term. The latter realization has …

Environmental changes have caused episodes of habitat expansions in the evolutionary
history of many species. These range changes affect the dynamics of biological evolution in …

Background A number of recent papers have cast doubt on the applicability of the
quasispecies concept to virus evolution, and have argued that population genetics is a more …

This review is an introduction to theoretical models and mathematical calculations for
biological evolution, aimed at physicists. The methods in the field are naturally very similar to …

Viruses represent a serious problem faced by human and veterinary medicine and
agronomy. New viruses are constantly emerging while old ones evolve and challenge the …

We analyze the equilibrium behavior of deterministic haploid mutation–selection models. To
this end, both the forward and the time-reversed evolution processes are considered. The …

We reconsider deterministic models of mutation and selection acting on populations of
sequences, or, equivalently, multilocus systems with complete linkage. Exact analytical …

5.1. 5. Error thresholds in finite populations 241 5.1. 6. Clues from the real world 244 5.2.
Muller's ratchet 245 5.2. 1. Ratchet dynamics 246 5.2. 2. Error thresholds versus Muller's …