Epigenetics has progressed rapidly from an obscure quirk of
heredity into a data-heavy ‘omic’ science. Our understanding
of the molecular mechanisms of epigenomic regulation, and
the extent of its importance in nature, are far from complete,
but in spite of such drawbacks, population-level studies
are extremely valuable: epigenomic regulation is involved in
several processes central to evolutionary biology including
phenotypic plasticity, evolvability and the mediation of
intragenomic conflicts. The first studies of epigenomic
variation within populations suggest high levels of phenotypically relevant variation, with the patterns of epigenetic regulation varying between individuals and genome regions as well as with environment. Epigenetic mechanisms appear to function primarily as genome defences, but result in the maintenance of plasticity together with a degree of buffering of developmental programmes; periodic breakdown of epigenetic buffering could potentially cause variation in rates of phenotypic evolution
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