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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Genome reduction as the dominant mode of evolution

Yuri I. Wolf, +1 more
- 01 Sep 2013 - 
- Vol. 35, Iss: 9, pp 829-837
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TLDR
Quantitatively, the evolution of genomes appears to be dominated by reduction and simplification, punctuated by episodes of complexification, and a general model composed of two distinct evolutionary phases is proposed.
Abstract
A common belief is that evolution generally proceeds towards greater complexity at both the organismal and the genomic level, numerous examples of reductive evolution of parasites and symbionts notwithstanding However, recent evolutionary reconstructions challenge this notion Two notable examples are the reconstruction of the complex archaeal ancestor and the intron-rich ancestor of eukaryotes In both cases, evolution in most of the lineages was apparently dominated by extensive loss of genes and introns, respectively These and many other cases of reductive evolution are consistent with a general model composed of two distinct evolutionary phases: the short, explosive, innovation phase that leads to an abrupt increase in genome complexity, followed by a much longer reductive phase, which encompasses either a neutral ratchet of genetic material loss or adaptive genome streamlining Quantitatively, the evolution of genomes appears to be dominated by reduction and simplification, punctuated by episodes of complexification

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Journal ArticleDOI

Evolution by gene loss

TL;DR: These questions are addressed, and insights are discussed from genomic studies of gene loss in populations and their relevance in evolutionary biology and biomedicine.
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Functional Profiling of a Plasmodium Genome Reveals an Abundance of Essential Genes

TL;DR: The genomes of malaria parasites contain many genes of unknown function and the level of genetic redundancy in a single-celled organism may reflect the degree of environmental variation it experiences, which helps rationalize both the relative successes of drugs and the greater difficulty of making an effective vaccine.
Journal ArticleDOI

Endosymbiotic theory for organelle origins

TL;DR: Protein import is the strongest evidence the authors have for the single origin of chloroplasts and mitochondria and is probably also the strongestevidence they have to sort out the number and nature of secondary endosymbiotic events that have occurred in evolution involving the red plastid lineage.
Journal ArticleDOI

Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin.

Charles Weijer
- 08 Mar 1997 - 
TL;DR: Stephen Jay Gould challenges two widely accepted claims: Firstly, that the decline this century of very high-quality information is a trend, and secondly, that human evolution is in decline.
References
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Book

An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications

TL;DR: The Journal of Symbolic Logic as discussed by the authors presents a thorough treatment of the subject with a wide range of illustrative applications such as the randomness of finite objects or infinite sequences, Martin-Loef tests for randomness, information theory, computational learning theory, the complexity of algorithms, and the thermodynamics of computing.

An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications

TL;DR: The book presents a thorough treatment of the central ideas and their applications of Kolmogorov complexity with a wide range of illustrative applications, and will be ideal for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers in computer science, mathematics, cognitive sciences, philosophy, artificial intelligence, statistics, and physics.
Book

The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change

TL;DR: A new book that many people really want to read will you be one of them? Of course, you should be as discussed by the authors, even some people think that reading is a hard to do, you must be sure that you can do it.
Journal ArticleDOI

The origins of genome complexity.

TL;DR: It is argued that many of these modifications emerged passively in response to the long-term population-size reductions that accompanied increases in organism size, and provided novel substrates for the secondary evolution of phenotypic complexity by natural selection.
Journal ArticleDOI

Genomics and Evolution of Heritable Bacterial Symbionts

TL;DR: Insect heritable symbionts provide some of the extremes of cellular genomes, including the smallest and the fastest evolving, raising new questions about the limits of evolution of life.
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