Evolution is powerful. From a single cell, it generated the astonishing diversity of life on our planet. Yet there are also all kinds of constraints shaping evolutionary processes and limiting evolutionary possibilities. They can be genetical, developmental or physiological. So given these constraints, is it possible for evolution to take the same trajectory twice? Or let’s put it more boldly, can we even predict evolution? A recent study on the parallel evolution of dauer formation resistance in three different lab Caenorhabditis strains lends a positive answer. Continue reading →