Biological monitoring of environmental quality: The use of developmental instability

D.C. Freeman; J.M. Emlen; J.H. Graham; R. A. Hough; T.A. Bannon

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USGS · 70180361

Biological monitoring of environmental quality: The use of developmental instability

D.C. Freeman·J.M. Emlen·J.H. Graham·R. A. Hough·T.A. Bannon

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Abstract

Distributed robustness is thought to influence the buffering of random phenotypic variation through the scale-free topology of gene regulatory, metabolic, and protein-protein interaction networks. If this hypothesis is true, then the phenotypic response to the perturbation of particular nodes in such a network should be proportional to the number of links those nodes make with neighboring nodes. This suggests a probability distribution approximating an inverse power-law of random phenotypic variation. Zero phenotypic variation, however, is impossible, because random molecular and cellular processes are essential to normal development. Consequently, a more realistic distribution should have a y-intercept close to zero in the lower tail, a mode greater than zero, and a long (fat) upper tail. The double Pareto-lognormal (DPLN) distribution is an ideal candidate distribution. It consists of a mixture of a lognormal body and upper and lower power-law tails.

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D.C. Freeman, J.M. Emlen, J.H. Graham, R. A. Hough, T.A. Bannon. 1994. Biological monitoring of environmental quality: The use of developmental instability. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70180361

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