Talk:Robustness (evolution)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 October 2019 and 14 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sbastide.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:15, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Merge into canalisation?
Merge with canalisation? --Redhead 17:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge into Robustness (evolution)?
I just create another page Robustness (evolution) since robustness doesn't only refer to mutational robustness. It could be environmental robustness, recombinational robustness and so on, depends on what kind of perturbation involved. So shall we merge this page into Robustness (evolution)? Bingjun Zhang (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with the proposed merger. I think it would be good to then have sections grouping the type of perturbation (as Zhang suggested) as well as grouping by mechanism (e.g. genomic vs gene level robustness mechanisms). If no one objects I might start that since I don't know if Zhang is still around. T. Shafee (Evo&#38;Evo) (talk) 00:14, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Mutational Robustness in Systems
Would it be helpful to mention the theories that mutational robustness helps specific systems maintain their functionality? Maybe a section devoted to the discussion about how keeping neutral mutations high preserves the function of systems such as gene regulatory networks, and some very important proteins, for an organism's survival? Since these processes are crucial to the functionality of most organisms, including viruses and bacteria, they are protected by maintaing their robustness over time. Haley Thil (talk) 15:09, 9 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The added text is too teleological. The question is under what circumstances individuals with higher robustness have higher reproductive fitness. Fragility is also a possible outcome, eg see Krakauer & Plotkin PNAS 2002 or Rajon & Masel PNAS 2009. Joannamasel (talk) 19:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Costs and Benefits?

 * I am thinking about adding a new section to this page, taking your advice. A new section devoted to the costs and benefits of mutational robustness? I will start the section now, feel free to add to it, plan on expansion after more research is completed. Haley Thil (talk) 19:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

2014 merge
Based on above conversations, have merged the article mutational robustness (2014 permalink), which was mostly repeated anyway, into robustness (evolution). To complement this, I've added some more information and clarification and will expand some more over the next few days.T. Shafee (Evo&#38;Evo) (talk) 08:27, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I've expanded the cuases and consequences section and added a stack of references. I think the article can be moved from Stub to C class if everyone's ok with that. Some areas that could really do with some attention are expanding the classifications section to describe environmental and behavioural robustness.T. Shafee (Evo&#38;Evo) (talk) 06:07, 14 January 2014 (UTC)