Today, I was inspired by two articles. One describes adaptation benefits from gene loss through natural loss-of-function mutations https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590346220301310?via%3Dihub. The other describes plant autoimmunity https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.16947.
The idea of adaptation through gene loss reminds me of the comparison between angiosperms and gymnosperms. One assumption attributed angiosperm’s rapid diversification in early evolution to their genome downsizing. Is it possible that gene loss promote the speciation radiation?
Plant autoimmunity could be generalized as deleterious epistasis (gene-gene interaction or protein-protein interaction).
Both articles seem to point: gene redundancy can be harmful to adaptation at some circumstances.