Synthesis of Experimental Molecular Biology and Evolutionary Biology

Natural selection has played an important role in establishing various phenotypes, but molecular mechanisms of phenotypic adaptation are not well understood.  The slow progress is a consequence of mutagenesis experiments using present-day molecules and the limited scope of statistical methods used to detect adaptive evolution.  To fully appreciate phenotypic adaptation, the precise roles of adaptive mutations during phenotypic evolution must be elucidated by engineering and manipulating ancestral phenotypes.  Experimental and quantum chemical analyses of dim-light vision reveal some surprising results and provide a foundation for a productive study of adaptive evolution of various phenotypes.