Successes, limitations, and prospects. Stearns, S.C. 2000. Statistical error and its impact on genomic inference. Some Modest Advice for Graduate Students Summary of most recent grant proposal Traits cannot evolve independently of other traits. To answer such questions we must understand what causes tradeoffs.
Tradeoffs shape the evolution of many important traits, especially life histories and aging.
Now a new definition of tradeoffs could move us much closer to understanding their causes. We suggest that tradeoffs are caused by conflicts among functions over gene expression. This proposal tests that suggestion in three steps. First, we measure the whole-organism functions of all the genes in the Drosophila genome by recording how they change expression in response to 8 challenges relevant to evolutionary hypotheses based on tradeoffs. The remaining conflicts over gene expression express the core of tradeoffs.