On the incongruence of genotype-phenotype and fitness landscapes
Fig 7
Rugged fitness landscapes need not impede adaptation.
The average length of an adaptive walk 〈l〉 and the change in mean population fitness at equilibrium 〈f〉 is shown for landscapes of transcription factor-DNA interactions generated using (A,C) the mismatch model for e = 0.05 and (B,D) protein binding microarray data. In (B,D), violin plots show the distribution, and box-and-whisker plots the 25–75% quartiles, across the 1,137 empirical landscapes for each optimal binding affinity wopt. The large variability of 〈l〉 at intermediate and high wopt is a consequence of the random diffusion of the population on non-peak plateaus, which results in longer walks. In (C), μ = 0.1, σ = 1 while in (D) μ = 0.1, σ = 0.15.