Main description:

Although debated since the time of Darwin, the evolutionary role of mutation is still controversial. In over 40 chapters from leading authorities in mutation and evolutionary biology, this book takes a new look at both the theoretical and experimental measurement and significance of new mutation. Deleterious, nearly neutral, beneficial, and polygenic mutations are considered in their effects on fitness, life history traits, and the composition of the gene pool. Mutation is a phenomenon that draws attention from many different disciplines. Thus, the extensive reviews of the literature will be valuable both to established researchers and to those just beginning to study this field. Through up-to-date reviews, the authors provide an insightful overview of each topic and then share their newest ideas and explore controversial aspects of mutation and the evolutionary process. From topics like gonadal mosaicism and mutation clusters to adaptive mutagenesis, mutation in cell organelles, and the level and distribution of DNA molecular changes, the foundation is set for continuing the debate about the role of mutation, fitness, and adaptability. It is a debate that will have profound consequences for our understanding of evolution.

Contents:

Deleterious mutations.- Some evolutionary consequences of deleterious mutations.- Risk of population extinction from fixation of deleterious and reverse mutations.- Deleterious mutation accumulation in organelle genomes.- Mutation-selection balance with multiple alleles.- Mutation pressure, natural selection, and the evolution of base composition in Drosophila.- Deleterious mutations in animal mitochondrial DNA.- Requisite mutational load, pathway epistasis, and deterministic mutation accumulation in sexual versus asexual populations.- Neutral (nearly neutral) mutations.- Evolution by nearly-neutral mutations.- Compensatory neutral mutations and the evolution of RNA.- The amount and pattern of DNA polymorphism under the neutral mutation hypothesis.- Beneficial mutations.- Adaptive mutagenesis: a process that generates almost exclusively beneficial mutations.- The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population.- An embarrassment of riches: the stochastic generation of beneficial mutations.- Selection, convergence, and intragenic recombination in HLA diversity.- Quantitative traits.- Mutation and conflicts between artificial and natural selection for quantitative traits.- Measuring spontaneous deleterious mutation process.- Polygenic mutation in Drosophila melanogaster: genotype x environment interaction for spontaneous mutations affecting bristle number.- Environment-influenced expression of polygene mutations isolated from a natural population of Drosophila melanogaster.- Inferences on genome-wide deleterious mutation rates in inbred populations of Drosophila and mice.- How should we explain variation in the genetic variance of traits?.- The mutation rate and the distribution of mutational effects of viability and fitness in Drosophila melanogaster.- Evolution of intermediate self ing rates in plants: pollination ecology versus deleterious mutations.- Mathematical properties of mutation-selection models.- Mutation, life history, and senescence.- Mutation and senescence: where genetics and demography meet.- Spontaneous mutation for life-history traits in Drosophila melanogaster.- Mutation rates in mangroves and other plants.- Genetic changes.- Asymmetrical DNA replication promotes evolution: disparity theory of evolution.- Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in Escherichia coli.- Mutation and evolution of microsatellites in Drosophila melanogaster.- The molecular clock revisited: the rate of synonymous vs. replacement change in Drosophila.- Directional mutational pressure affects the amino acid composition and hydrophobicity of proteins in bacteria.- Mutation and selection at silent and replacement sites in the evolution of animal mitochondrial DNA.- Enigma of Y chromosome degeneration: Neo-Y and Neo-X chromosomes of Drosophila miranda a model for sex chromosome evolution.- Cell lineage selection, germinal mosaics, and evolution.- The developmental basis for germline mosaicism in mouse and Drosophila melanogaster.- Major impacts of gonadal mosaicism on hereditary risk estimation, origin of hereditary diseases, and evolution.- Discovery of numerous clusters of spontaneous mutations in the specific-locus test in mice necessitates major increases in estimates of doubling doses.- Clusters of new identical mutants and the fate of underdominant mutations.- Mutation and selection within the individual.- Mutation and the dynamics of adaptation.- Towards a theory of evolutionary adaptation.- A pleiotropic model of phenotypic evolution.- Population differentiation through mutation and drift - a comparison of genetic identity measures.- Inferring the major genomic mode of dominance and overdominance.- Genetic measurement theory of epistatic effects.