Suppose you were trying to design a vaccine to combat next season's influenza virus. Having a detailed map that tells you exactly how various strains of the flu bug will evolve would be extremely helpful, explain researchers. Creating just that sort of map is the goal of evolutionary biologists who study a conceptual tool called the fitness landscape, which provides a way to visualize and predict evolution.

Source: Visualizing, predicting evolution by mapping the elusive 'fitness landscape'