Does Mutation Rate Depend on Itself

Does Mutation Rate Depend on Itself?

M any a research paper, textbook chapter, and grant proposal has begun with the phrase " Mutation is the ultimate source of genetic variation. " Implicit in this phrase is the assumption that genetic variation is required for evolution. Without mutation, evolution would not be possible, and life itself could never have arisen in the first place. However, there is overwhelming evidence that the ...

Ancestral alleles and population origins: inferences depend on mutation rate.

Previous studies have found that at most human loci, ancestral alleles are "African," in the sense that they reach their highest frequency there. Conventional wisdom holds that this reflects a recent African origin of modern humans. This paper challenges that view by showing that the empirical pattern (of elevated allele frequencies within Africa) is not as pervasive as has been thought. We con...

Does the rate of competing isomerisation during alkene metathesis depend on pre-catalyst initiation rate?

Experimental studies of the ring-closing metathesis reaction of 1,8-nonadiene and the ROMP reaction of cycloheptene show that the rate of isomerisation is not correlated to the initiation rate of the pre-catalyst, and that the absence of phosphine leads to a greatly increased rate of isomerisation. A range of pre-catalysts and solvents were probed and it is proposed that the isomerisation is me...

Honeybee flight metabolic rate: does it depend upon air temperature?

Differing conclusions have been reached as to how or whether varying heat production has a thermoregulatory function in flying honeybees Apis mellifera. We investigated the effects of air temperature on flight metabolic rate, water loss, wingbeat frequency, body segment temperatures and behavior of honeybees flying in transparent containment outdoors. For periods of voluntary, uninterrupted, se...

Does mutation rate drive resistance to fluoroquinolones?