Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2009 Jun 23;5(3):401-4.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0136. Epub 2009 Apr 8.

Why do species vary in their rate of molecular evolution?

Affiliations
Review

Why do species vary in their rate of molecular evolution?

Lindell Bromham. Biol Lett. .

Abstract

Despite hopes that the processes of molecular evolution would be simple, clock-like and essentially universal, variation in the rate of molecular evolution is manifest at all levels of biological organization. Furthermore, it has become clear that rate variation has a systematic component: rate of molecular evolution can vary consistently with species body size, population dynamics, lifestyle and location. This suggests that the rate of molecular evolution should be considered part of life-history variation between species, which must be taken into account when interpreting DNA sequence differences between lineages. Uncovering the causes and correlates of rate variation may allow the development of new biologically motivated models of molecular evolution that may improve bioinformatic and phylogenetic analyses.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Baer C., Miyamoto M.M., Denver D.R. Mutation rate variation in multicellular eukaryotes: causes and consequences. Nat. Rev. Genet. 2007;8:619–631. doi:10.1038/nrg2158 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bartosch-Harlid A., Berlin S., Smith N.G.C., ller A.P., Ellegren H. Life history and the male mutation bias. Evolution. 2003;57:2398–2406. doi:10.1554/03-036 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bromham L. Oxford University Press; Oxford, UK: 2008. Reading the story in DNA: a beginner's guide to molecular evolution.
    1. Bromham L., Leys R. Sociality and rate of molecular evolution. Mol. Biol. Evol. 2005;22:1393–1402. doi:10.1093/molbev/msi133 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bromham L., Rambaut A., Harvey P.H. Determinants of rate variation in mammalian DNA sequence evolution. J. Mol. Evol. 1996;43:610–621. doi:10.1007/BF02202109 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources