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Andreas Wagner.
Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems.
Princeton University Press. 2005

All living things are remarkably complex, yet their DNA is unstable, undergoing countless random mutations over generations. Despite this instability, most animals do not grow two heads or die, plants continue to thrive, and bacteria continue to divide. Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems tackles this perplexing paradox. The book explores why genetic changes do not cause organisms to fail catastrophically and how evolution shapes organisms’ robustness. Andreas Wagner looks at this problem from the ground up, starting with the alphabet of DNA, the genetic code, RNA, and protein molecules, moving on to genetic networks and embryonic development, and working his way up to whole organisms. He then develops an evolutionary explanation for robustness.

Wagner shows how evolution by natural selection preferentially finds and favors robust solutions to the problems organisms face in surviving and reproducing. Such robustness, he argues, also enhances the potential for future evolutionary innovation. Wagner also argues that robustness has less to do with organisms having plenty of spare parts (the redundancy theory that has been popular) and more to do with the reality that mutations can change organisms in ways that do not substantively affect their fitness.

Unparalleled in its field, this book offers the most detailed analysis available of all facets of robustness within organisms. It will appeal not only to biologists but also to engineers interested in the design of robust systems and to social scientists concerned with robustness in human communities and populations.

Andreas Wagner.
Paradoxical Life.
Yale University Press. 2009

Andreas Wagner.
The Origins of Evolutionary Innovations.
OUP. 2011

The history of life is a nearly four-billion-year-old story of transformative change. This change ranges from dramatic macroscopic innovations such as the evolution of wings or eyes, to a myriad of molecular changes that form the basis of macroscopic innovations. We are familiar with many examples of innovations (qualitatively new phenotypes that can provide a critical advantage) but have no systematic understanding of the principles that allow organisms to innovate. This book proposes several such principles as the basis of a theory of innovation, integrating recent knowledge about complex molecular phenotypes with more traditional Darwinian thinking. Central to the book are genotype networks: vast sets of connected genotypes that exist in metabolism and regulatory circuitry, as well as in protein and RNA molecules. The theory proposed can successfully unify innovations that occur at different levels of organization. It captures known features of biological innovation, including the fact that many innovations occur multiple times independently, and that they combine existing parts of a system to new purposes. It also argues that environmental change is important to create biological systems that are both complex and robust, and shows how such robustness can facilitate innovation. Beyond that, the theory can reconcile neutralism and selectionism, as well as explain the role of phenotypic plasticity, gene duplication, recombination, and cryptic variation in innovation. Finally, its principles can be applied to technological innovation, and thus open to human engineering endeavors the powerful principles that have allowed life’s spectacular success.

The Origins of Evolutionary Innovations will be suitable for graduate level students taking courses in evolutionary biology, as well as a broader audience of practicing biologists.

Andreas Wagner.
Arrival of the Fittest.
Oneworld. 2014

Darwin’s theory of natural selection was a monumental step in our understanding of evolution, explaining how useful adaptations are preserved over generations. However, Darwin’s great idea didn’t – and couldn’t – tell us how those adaptations arise in the first place. On its own, can random mutation really be responsible for all the creative marvels in nature?

Renowned evolutionary biologist Andreas Wagner presents the missing piece of Darwin’s theory. Using cutting-edge experimental technologies, he has found that adaptations are driven by a set of laws that allow nature to discover new molecules and mechanisms in a fraction of the time random variation would take. Meticulously researched, carefully argued, and full of fascinating examples from the animal kingdom, Arrival of the Fittest presents an answer to one of the mysteries of life’s rich diversity.

Andreas Wagner.
Sleeping Beauties: the mystery of dormant innovations in nature and culture.
Oneworld. 2023

Life innovates constantly, producing perfectly adapted species – but there’s a catch…

Many animals and plants eke out seemingly unremarkable lives. Passive, constrained and constantly under threat. Then, in a blink of evolutionary time, they flourish spectacularly. Once we start to look, these ‘sleeping beauties’ crop up everywhere. But why?

Looking at the book of life, from apex predators to keystone crops, and informed by his own cutting-edge research, renowned evolutionary biologist Andreas Wagner demonstrates that innovations can come frequently and cheaply to nature, well before they are needed. We have found prehistoric bacteria that harbour the astonishing ability to fight off 21st-century antibiotics. And human history fits the pattern too, as life-changing technologies are invented only to be forgotten, languishing in the shadows before finally they take off.

In probing the mysteries of these sleeping beauties, Wagner reveals a crucial part of nature’s rich and strange tapestry.