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Biological monitoring of environmental quality: The use of developmental instability

Journal of Environmental Engineering
By: , and 

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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.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Biological monitoring of environmental quality: The use of developmental instability
Series title Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 4
Year Published 1994
Language English
Contributing office(s) Western Fisheries Research Center
Description 6 p.
First page 6
Last page 11
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