School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, QLD, Australia.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2011 Jan;26(1):22-9. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2010.10.008. Epub 2010 Nov 20.
Evolutionary theory has emphasized that the evolution of single traits cannot be understood in isolation when pleiotropy is present. Widespread pleiotropy causes the appearance of stabilizing selection on metric traits owing to joint effects with fitness, and results in the genetic variation being concentrated in relatively few combinations of the measured traits. In this review, we show how trait combinations with high levels of genetic variation can be used to uncover fitness optima that are defined by apparent stabilizing selection. Defining fitness optima in this way could provide one avenue by which researchers can overcome the problem posed by measuring the myriad of traits that must influence fitness, or by measuring total fitness itself.
进化理论强调，当存在多效性时，不能孤立地理解单个特征的进化。广泛的多效性导致由于与适应性的联合效应，在度量特征上出现稳定选择，从而导致遗传变异集中在相对较少的度量特征组合中。在这篇综述中，我们展示了如何利用具有高水平遗传变异的特征组合来揭示由明显的稳定选择定义的适应性最优值。以这种方式定义适应性最优值可以为研究人员提供一种途径，以克服必须测量众多影响适应性的特征的问题，或者测量总适应性本身的问题。
