Exploring Adaptive Landscapes in a Long-term Experiment with Bacteria

There is a fundamental tension between stochastic and deterministic processes in evolution. Whether random mutation or the systematic force of selection dominates the dynamics and outcomes also depends on the adaptive landscape in which evolution occurs. This talk will summarize findings from a 50,000-generation experiment with 12 populations of E. coli that provide insight into the repeatability of evolution, the roles of these key processes, and the structure of the adaptive landscape.