rate of evolution

"Daniel Sch?tz" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

because I want to take a look how mutation rate,
generation time an selection pressure interacts with the
rate of evolution (evolution velocity) I need different
measurements:

* generation times of any species
* mutation rates of any species and
* the number of species in a population that came to
reproduction and the number of the reproducted organism
that also came to reproduction. With this two data I can
calculate the selection pressure as the ratio of (number
of reproducters)/(number of childs that also came to
reproduction).

If you could give me some of needed information I would be
very happy.

It gets very complicated. The most important thing you need
to know is probably that evoution is measured in
generations, so generation time gives a linear response. The
next most important thing is the selection coefficient, s,
of a new mutation. The most fit genotype is assumed to have
a fitness of 1, so other genotypes have fitness of less than
one, and s is basically the difference between the most fit
genotype and the least fit genotype. The chance of an
advantageous mutation being fixed is 2s, regardless of the
size of the population (beyond a certain minimum of course).
The problem is that if the mutation rate is too high then
drift will dominate. In natural populations the equilibrium
frequency for recessive detrimental alleles is fairly low,
because the mutation rate is low, but in simulated evolution
this can destroy adaptive progress.