How predictable and repeatable is evolution?
In plain words
If the same population evolved again from the same start, would it take the same steps and end in the same place? The answer depends on population size, mutation supply and the shape of the fitness surface, in ways not yet quantified.
Precise statement
For asexual microbial populations of size $N$ and beneficial mutation rate $U_b$ on an empirically measured fitness landscape, determine the probability that replicate populations follow the same mutational path or reach the same peak, and which landscape statistics (ruggedness, epistasis structure, distribution of fitness effects) control it. Answer: a theory that predicts measured repeatability in replicated evolution experiments.
What would settle it
Replicated evolution experiments on a fully mapped landscape whose path statistics match a parameter-free population-genetic prediction.
Related problems
- More general than Accessibility of fitness peaks in large sequence spaces
- More general than Why diminishing-returns epistasis is so common