Evolvability of Complex Characters

The effect of recombination on genotypes can be represented in the form of P-structures, i.e. a map from the set of pairs of genotypes to the power set of genotypes. The interpretation is that the P-structure maps the pair of parental genotypes to the set of recombinant genotypes which result from the recombination of the parental genotypes. A recombination fitness landscape is then a function from the genotypes in a P-structure to the real numbers. In previous papers we have shown that the eigenfunctions of (a matrix associated with) the P-structure provide a base for the Fourier decomposition of arbitrary recombination landscapes.