Sexual selection does not influence minisatellite mutation rate.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Moller and Cuervo report a significant trend between minisatellite mutation rate and the frequency of extra-pair copulations in birds. This is interpreted as evidence that the high rate of evolution demanded by sexual selection has itself selected for a higher mutation rate in species where selection is strongest. However, there are good a priori reasons for believing that their method of calculating minisatellite mutation rates will be highly error prone and a poor surrogate measure of the evolutionary rate of genes. I therefore attempted to replicate their results using both their data and an independent data set based on papers they failed to locate.

Results

I find that Moller and Cuervo's data set contains numerous errors that act somewhat to strengthen their

SUBMITTER: Amos W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2636768 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature