IUBio

Quasispecies

Joe Felsenstein joe at evolution.genetics.washington.edu
Thu Oct 30 11:31:49 EST 1997


In article <637ntb$s0t at net.bio.net>, toni  <toniv at iname.com> wrote:
>Nobody talks about quasispecies?

The flip answer is "no, they don't".  The more interesting answer is
"should they?"  It is important to talk about genetic variation in
species.  When someone working on humans or Drosophila does this, they
say they are talking about genetic variation in natural populations.
When a virologist talks about it, they say they are talking about
quasispecies, which sounds infinitely more mysterious and novel.

So the question is, is anything gained by considering it as a
discussion of "quasispecies" rather than "genetic variation"?

-- 
Joe Felsenstein         joe at genetics.washington.edu
 Dept. of Genetics, Univ. of Washington, Box 357360, Seattle, WA 98195-7360 USA




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