title: An extreme test of mutational meltdown shows mutational firm up instead.
abstract: Traditionally, the accumulation of new deleterious mutations in populations or species in low numbers is expected to lead to a reduction in fitness and mutational meltdown, but in this study the opposite was observed. Beginning with a highly inbred populations of Drosophila melanogaster, new mutations that accumulated in experiments of two females and two males or of one female and one male each generation for 52 generations did not cause a decline in progeny numbers over time. Only two lines went extinct among 52 tested lines. In three of four experiments there was a significant increase in progeny numbers over time (mutational firm up), which had to be due to new beneficial, compensatory, overdominant, or back mutations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. rwoodru@bgsu.edu
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Woodruff
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D005260:Female; D056084:Genetic Fitness; D005838:Genotype; D007178:Inbreeding; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation; D012641:Selection, Genetic
references.citation: Evolution. 1997 Oct;51(5):1363-1371
references.pmid: 28568635
references.citation: Genetics. 1994 Jun;137(2):597-606
references.pmid: 8070669
references.citation: Genetica. 2011 Feb;139(2):177-86
references.pmid: 21128095
references.citation: Nature. 2007 Jan 4;445(7123):82-5
references.pmid: 17203060
references.citation: Evolution. 2002 Mar;56(3):453-63
references.pmid: 11989677
references.citation: Genetica. 1998;102-103(1-6):21-7
references.pmid: 9766960
references.citation: Genetics. 2001 Jan;157(1):53-61
references.pmid: 11139491
references.citation: Evolution. 1999 Jun;53(3):645-663
references.pmid: 28565627
references.citation: Genetics. 2008 Mar;178(3):1571-8
references.pmid: 18245361
references.citation: J Hered. 1993 Sep-Oct;84(5):339-44
references.pmid: 8409355
references.citation: Evolution. 1994 Oct;48(5):1460-1469
references.pmid: 28568413
references.citation: Evolution. 2006 Dec;60(12):2413-27
references.pmid: 17263105
references.citation: Evolution. 2000 Oct;54(5):1467-79
references.pmid: 11108576
references.citation: Evolution. 1990 Nov;44(7):1725-1737
references.pmid: 28567811
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2009 May 22;276(1663):1823-7
references.pmid: 19324785
references.citation: Evolution. 2001 May;55(5):909-17
references.pmid: 11430651
references.citation: Evolution. 2003 May;57(5):1022-30
references.pmid: 12836820
references.citation: Genetica. 2010 Feb;138(2):251-63
references.pmid: 19882309
references.citation: Evolution. 1995 Dec;49(6):1067-1080
references.pmid: 28568521
references.citation: Nat Rev Genet. 2007 Aug;8(8):619-31
references.pmid: 17637734
references.citation: Heredity (Edinb). 2007 Oct;99(4):359-60
references.pmid: 17687249
references.citation: Genetics. 2004 Dec;168(4):1817-25
references.pmid: 15611159
references.citation: Biol Lett. 2005 Dec 22;1(4):492-5
references.pmid: 17148241
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Oct 23;104(43):16992-7
references.pmid: 17940029