Abstract:
RNA viruses are the main source of emerging infectious diseases given the
evolutionary potential bestowed by their fast replication, large population
sizes and high mutation and recombination rates.  However, an equally important
parameter, which is usually neglected, is the topography of the fitness
landscape, that is, how many fitness maxima exist and how well connected they
are, which determines the number of accessible evolutionary pathways.  In this
talk I will present our efforts to reconstruct and analyze the fitness
landscape describing the adaptation of tobacco etch Potyvirus (TEV) to its new
host, Arabidopsis thaliana ecotype Ler-0.  In doing so, I will show how rugged
and holey landscapes enabled evolving TEV lineages to avoid getting trapped in
local optima and, instead, to explore distant regions of the landscape.

Host: Joshua Weitz