When organisms enter a new environment, they’re bound to make some missteps. A new study suggests those initial flubs may speed up evolution.
Trinidadian guppies transplanted from predator-infested waters to streams devoid of predators responded by changing activity of some genes in the brain. Although some changes were helpful, most were disadvantageous. But genes that got off on the wrong foot by changing activity in unhelpful ways evolved the fastest, researchers report September 2 in Nature.