Reductive evolution of resident genomes.
Small, asexual populations are expected to accumulate deleterious substitutions and deletions in an irreversible manner, which in the long-term will lead to mutational meltdown and genome decay. Here, we discuss the influence of such reductive processes on the evolution of genomes that replicate within the domain of a host genome.
Dept of Molecular Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden. siv.andersson@molbio.uu.se
S G
SG
Andersson
C G
CG
Kurland
D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D016678:Genome; D009154:Mutation; D011995:Recombination, Genetic