Rates of DNA sequence evolution differ between taxonomic groups.

By R. Britten. 1986

The mutation rates of DNA sequences during evolution can be estimated from interspecies DNA sequence differences by assaying changes that have little or no effect on the phenotype (neutral mutations). Examination of available measurements shows that rates of DNA change of different phylogenetic groups differ by a factor of 5. The slowest rates are observed for higher primates and some bird lineages, while faster rates are seen in rodents, sea urchins, and drosophila. The rate of DNA sequence change has decreased markedly during primate evolution. The contrast in rates of DNA sequence change is probably due to evolutionary variation and selection of biochemical mechanisms such as DNA replication or repair.

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Citations in the corpus

Comparative analysis of phylogenetic and fishing effects in life history patterns of teleost fishes (2000, background): “For a given trait, evolutionary rates vary between branches of a phylogenetic tree (Aota and Ikemura 1986, Britten 1986, Catzeflis et al. 1987, Li et al. 1996, Mindell and Thacker 1996), and they also vary with time along a given branch (Svensson 1997).”
Molecular dating of phylogenetic trees: A brief review of current methods that estimate divergence times (2006, background): “Variation in rates of nucleotide substitution, both along a lineage and between different lineages, is known to be pervasive (Britten, 1986; Gillespie, 1986; Li, 1997).”
Estimating absolute rates of molecular evolution and divergence times: a penalized likelihood approach. (2002, background): “…relative rates between lineages, in particular, have provided abundant evidence for departures from constant rates of substitution (Li and Wu 1985; Britten 1986; Li 1997; Muse 2000), a finding that has not, however, dampened enthusiasm for estimating divergence times from molecular data (e.g.,…”
Relaxed Phylogenetics and Dating with Confidence (2006, result): “]. This practice has been regularly challenged by results from datasets showing considerable departures from clocklike evolution [”
Clades, Clocks, and Continents: Historical and Biogeographical Analysis of Myrtaceae, Vochysiaceae, and Relatives in the Southern Hemisphere (2004, methodology): “In the former method, DNA was precipitated with ethanol and either sodium chloride or ammonium acetate because these cause fewer polysaccharides to coprecipitate with the DNA than is the case with isopropanol or with ethanol in the presence of sodium acetate (Bult et al. 1992).”
Phylogenetic signal, evolutionary process, and rate. (2008, background): “The rate of phenotypic evolution by genetic drift might be heterogeneous through time for any of a variety of biological reasons (such as higher solar radiation in tropical climes, concerted changes in the fidelity of DNA replication over time, trends in size or metabolic rate over time, and irrever”
EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS AND PLEISTOCENE BIOGEOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICAN TREE SQUIRRELS (TAMIASCIURUS) (2001, background): “…years (Arbogast and Slowinski 1998) and a relative rate of cytochrome-b evolution for rodents about 1.5–2 times faster than that of primates (Britten 1986; Dewalt et al. 1993; Li et al. 1987, 1990; Wu and Li 1985), a gamma-corrected rate of cytochrome-b evolution for rodents is estimated…”
Humanity from African Naissance to Coming Millennia (2001, background): “It was indeed shown that the silent molecular clock hypothesis is valid only within limited taxonomic groups, but it is violated between distantly related taxa (Britten, 1986).”