REGULATORY SELECTION AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE NEUTRAL THEORY

Regulatory selection is the most typical mode of natural selection res ponsible for the optimization of the regulatory systems of an organism . In addition to regulatory selection, stringent selection of pleiotro pic mutants or recombinant forms with altered ecological potential ope rates in successful species during vertical evolution. Regulatory sele ction stabilizes alterations in the ecological potential, acting at in tervals between larger regulatory genome alterations occurring at the boundaries between evolutionary phases. Fisher's adaptive model can be applied to regulatory selection. At each separate evolutionary phase, the selection coefficients in selected mutants decline gradually. At the final stage of the evolutionary phase, mutations with a minor sele ctive advantage are selected. Hence, regulatory selection may be regar ded as an alternative to the neutral evolution theory.