Molecular Evolution: Rates

Lindell Bromham, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Published online: July 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0001802.pub2

The pace of molecular change is generally more even than morphological evolution, yet there is clearly variation in molecular evolution rate between biological lineages. The causes of this rate variation are still largely unknown, but may be influenced by species characteristics, population structure and evolutionary processes.

Keywords: molecular clock; substitution; mutation; relative rates; generation time

Figure 1. Relative rates test: the genetic distances between each of a pair of taxa (A and B) and an outgroup (C) can be used to compare the amount of evolution along lineages A and B since their last common ancestor (O).
Figure 2. The negative body size effect on rate of molecular evolution in vertebrates. Modified from Martin and Palumbi (1993).
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 References
    Barraclough TG and Savolainen V (2001) Evolutionary rates and species diversity in flowering plants. Evolutionary rates and species diversity in flowering plants. Evolution 55: 677–683.
    Bromham L, Rambaut A and Harvey PH (1996) Determinants of rate variation in mammalian DNA sequence evolution. Journal of Molecular Evolution 43: 610–621.
    Ellegren H (2007) Characteristics, causes and evolutionary consequences of male-biased mutation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B 274: 1–10.
    book Gillespie JH (1991) The Causes of Molecular Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Lanfear R, Thomas JA, Welch JJ, Brey T and Bromham L (2007) Metabolic rate does not correct the molecular clock. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 104: 15388–15393.
    Martin AP and Palumbi SR (1993) Body size, metabolic rate, generation time and the molecular clock. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 90: 4087–4091.
    Webster AJ, Payne RJH, Pagel M (2003) Molecular phylogenies link rates of evolution and speciation. Science 301: 478.
 Further Reading
    book Bromham L (2008) Reading the Story in DNA: A Beginner's Guide to Molecular Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    book Kimura M (1983) The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
    book Lynch M (2007) The Origins of Genome Architecture. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
    book Maynard S (1998) Evolutionary Genetics, 2nd edn. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    book Page RDM and Holmes EC (1998) Molecular Evolution: A Phylogenetic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell Science.

Related Sub-Topics:

Molecular Evolution | Evolution Rates | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules
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Article Title: Molecular Evolution: Rates
 
How to Cite close
Bromham, Lindell(Jul 2008) Molecular Evolution: Rates. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0001802.pub2]