Abstract
Spontaneous mutations were accumulated in 100 replicate lines of Caenorhabditis elegans over a period of ~50 generations. Periodic assays of these lines and comparison to a frozen control suggest that the deleterious mutation rate for typical life-history characters in this species is at least 0.05 per diploid genome per generation, with the average mutational effect on the order of 14% or less in the homozygous state and the average mutational heritability ~0.0034. While the average mutation rate per character and the average mutational heritability for this species are somewhat lower than previous estimates for Drosophila, these differences can be reconciled to a large extent when the biological differences between these species are taken into consideration.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 119-129 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Genetics |
Volume | 151 |
Issue number | 1 |
State | Published - Jan 1999 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics