The idea is reminiscent of quasi-species models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasispecies_model These became topical in the field of virology during the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic with some researchers hypothesizing that Sars-CoV-2 variants were part of a larger quasi-species, but I’ve no idea what eventual consensus was, if any. Full disclaimer: I am neither a virologist nor a biologist, and so consider the epistemic status of this comment as pure hand-waving.
Bader W, Delerce J, Aherfi S, La Scola B, Colson P. Quasispecies Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 of 15 Different Lineages during the First Year of the Pandemic Prompts Scratching under the Surface of Consensus Genome Sequences. Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Dec 10;23(24):15658. doi: 10.3390/ijms232415658. PMID: 36555300; PMCID: PMC9779826.
The idea is reminiscent of quasi-species models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasispecies_model
These became topical in the field of virology during the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic with some researchers hypothesizing that Sars-CoV-2 variants were part of a larger quasi-species, but I’ve no idea what eventual consensus was, if any. Full disclaimer: I am neither a virologist nor a biologist, and so consider the epistemic status of this comment as pure hand-waving.
Bader W, Delerce J, Aherfi S, La Scola B, Colson P. Quasispecies Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 of 15 Different Lineages during the First Year of the Pandemic Prompts Scratching under the Surface of Consensus Genome Sequences. Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Dec 10;23(24):15658. doi: 10.3390/ijms232415658. PMID: 36555300; PMCID: PMC9779826.
I’m not a biologist either. This post is me handwaving. Thanks for the reference!