Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
64 lines (45 loc) · 2.83 KB

ROADMAP.md

File metadata and controls

64 lines (45 loc) · 2.83 KB

Experimental Design

alt text

In my project I want to understand the influence of certain parameters on the evolution of circadian clocks, such as the length of day. Is it important that the length of day and night are constant and similar over the course of a year, similar to the equatorial zone, or can a clock evolve on a hemisphere with changing day lengths and seasons? As soon as I have a better understanding about the environmental conditions for the evolution of a circadian clock, I want to investigate how these clocks change the fitness of the organism in competition with other organisms. How beneficial are circadian clocks compared to organisms without a clock or even organisms with a differently adapted clock?

Research Questions

  • What are strategies to cope with two alternating, oscillating resources?
  • How does the genome reshape under these oscillating conditions?
  • What are the boundary conditions that allow for the evolution of circadian clocks? Mutation rate, oscillation (length compared to organisms live cycle, length differences between phases, 12h/12h vs. 16h/8h etc.), reward differences, resources limitation...
  • What, if any, is the fitness advantage in competition to no-clock organisms?
  • What, if any, is the fitness advantage in competition to different cycling organisms?
  • Can the evolved clock adapt to new cyclic environments? No mutations allowed, put clock organisms into new phase world.

Roadmap

Goals

  1. Replicate Beckmann et al., 2007 and add second alternating resource cycle.
  2. Create a pool of organisms with circadian clocks.
  3. Find boundary conditions that allow for the evolution of circadian clocks, i.e. mutation rate, different reward for resources, "day lenght".
  4. Adapt clock organism pool to different cyclic environments.
  5. Examine fitness in competition experiments with no-clock organisms and other clock organisms.

Timeline

September

  • Create Repo, Readme, Code of Conduct, License, Contribution Guidelines and Roadmap
  • Create Wiki and add information about the project
  • Attend Kick-Off meeting in Berlin [9-11.September]

October

  • Get Avida running and get familiar with all options and settings
  • Start replicating Beckmann et al., 2007
  • Book flights to Chicago and find place to stay at MSU

November

December

  • Add circadian conditions to the existing scripts
  • ---
  • ---

January

  • ---
  • ---
  • ---

February

  • ---
  • ---
  • ---

March

  • Attent final meeting in Berlin
  • Write final report