Citation
Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems
TL;DR
Comprehensive analysis of biological robustness mechanisms
Comprehensive treatment of robustness mechanisms in biological systems, including genetic redundancy, metabolic pathway redundancy, and developmental canalization. Wagner's work explains how redundancy provides not just reliability but also raw material for evolutionary innovation.
Key Findings from Wagner (2005)
- Comprehensive analysis of biological robustness mechanisms
- Genetic redundancy allows one copy to maintain function while another experiments
- Metabolic pathway redundancy provides alternative routes to same products
- Redundancy enables evolutionary innovation by freeing components for variation