Evolution is the process by which species of living organisms change over time. It is a central concept in the field of biology and is considered to be one of the most important scientific theories of all time.
The European mole, equipped with its formidable digging shovels, can effortlessly tunnel through the earth. The same holds true for the Australian marsupial mole. Despite residing in vastly different regions, the two Julius Maximilian University (JMU) Würzburg. Mutations – changes in the genetic material – can be the triggers for the development of new traits.
However, genetic changes rarely lead to phenotypic evolution because the underlying mutations are largely random and neutral. Thus, a tremendous amount of mutations accumulate over the extreme time scale at which evolutionary processes occur, making the detection of phenotypically important changes extremely difficult.
A novel metric of molecular evolution
Now, Fukushima and his colleague David D. Pollock of the University of Colorado (USA) have succeeded in developing a method that achieves significantly better results than previously used methods in the search for the genetic basis of phenotypic traits. They present their approach in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
“We have developed a novel metric of molecular evolution that can accurately represent the rate of convergent evolution in protein-coding DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01932-7