Figure 7. A depiction of the fourth (yellow), fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth genotype of an adaptive walk in an NK landscape, with N = 15 and K = 10.

Only loci affected by mutation during the five adaptive steps are shown in the genotype labels, and the genotypes shown are restricted to those that differ from the initial genotype only at the five affected loci. The fitness of each genotype is also shown. The adaptive walk is colored blue, while the opposing arrows in each quadruple are colored red. Note the dominance of sign epistasis along the adaptive walk. The ridge-like quality of the adaptive walk is clear from the high proportion of “in” arrows emanating from the evolved genotypes.