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The mechanisms of evolution focus mainly on mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, non-random mating, and natural selection. Mutation: Mutation [12] is a change in the DNA sequence inside a gene or a chromosome of an organism. Most mutations are deleterious, or neutral; i.e. they can neither harm nor benefit, but can also be beneficial sometimes.
Genetic variation is the difference in DNA among individuals [1] or the differences between populations among the same species. [2] The multiple sources of genetic variation include mutation and genetic recombination. [3] Mutations are the ultimate sources of genetic variation, but other mechanisms, such as genetic drift, contribute to it, as ...
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
[37] [38] That is, the spectrum of mutation may become very important, particularly mutation biases, predictable differences in the rates of occurrence for different types of mutations, because bias in the introduction of variation can impose biases on the course of evolution. [39] Mutation plays a key role in other classical and recent ...
Molecular evolution describes how inherited DNA and/or RNA change over evolutionary time, and the consequences of this for proteins and other components of cells and organisms. Molecular evolution is the basis of phylogenetic approaches to describing the tree of life. Molecular evolution overlaps with population genetics, especially on shorter ...
Mutations are not entirely random, nor do they occur at the same frequency everywhere in the genome. Certain regions of an organism's genome will be more or less likely to undergo mutation depending on the presence of DNA repair mechanisms and other mutation biases.
In biology, a substitution model, also called models of sequence evolution, are Markov models that describe changes over evolutionary time. These models describe evolutionary changes in macromolecules, such as DNA sequences or protein sequences, that can be represented as sequence of symbols (e.g., A, C, G, and T in the case of DNA or the 20 "standard" proteinogenic amino acids in the case of ...
A number of different Markov models of DNA sequence evolution have been proposed. [1] These substitution models differ in terms of the parameters used to describe the rates at which one nucleotide replaces another during evolution. These models are frequently used in molecular phylogenetic analyses.