MBE Advance Access originally published online on September 20, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2006 23(12):2474-2479; doi:10.1093/molbev/msl128
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Research Articles |
Large Global Effective Population Sizes in Paramecium


* Department of Biology, Indiana University
Molecular Evolution and Animal Systematics, Institute of Biology II, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
E-mail: milynch{at}indiana.edu.
The genetic effective population size (Ne) of a species is an important parameter for understanding evolutionary dynamics because it mediates the relative effects of selection. However, because most Ne estimates for unicellular organisms are derived either from taxa with poorly understood species boundaries or from host-restricted pathogens and most unicellular species have prominent phases of clonal propagation potentially subject to strong selective sweeps, the hypothesis that Ne is elevated in single-celled organisms remains controversial. Drawing from observations on well-defined species within the genus Paramecium, we report exceptionally high levels of silent-site polymorphism, which appear to be a reflection of large Ne.
Key Words: ciliates effective population size genome evolution mitochondrial DNA Paramecium
![]()
CiteULike
Connotea
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
N. Grimsley, B. Pequin, C. Bachy, H. Moreau, and G. Piganeau Cryptic Sex in the Smallest Eukaryotic Marine Green Alga Mol. Biol. Evol., January 1, 2010; 27(1): 47 - 54. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
C.-H. Kuo, N. A. Moran, and H. Ochman The consequences of genetic drift for bacterial genome complexity Genome Res., August 1, 2009; 19(8): 1450 - 1454. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
E. Gentekaki and D. H. Lynn High-Level Genetic Diversity but No Population Structure Inferred from Nuclear and Mitochondrial Markers of the Peritrichous Ciliate Carchesium polypinum in the Grand River Basin (North America) Appl. Envir. Microbiol., May 15, 2009; 75(10): 3187 - 3195. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
N. Donmez, G. A. Bazykin, M. Brudno, and A. S. Kondrashov Polymorphism Due to Multiple Amino Acid Substitutions at a Codon Site Within Ciona savignyi Genetics, February 1, 2009; 181(2): 685 - 690. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
F. Catania, F. Wurmser, A. A. Potekhin, E. Przybos, and M. Lynch Genetic Diversity in the Paramecium aurelia Species Complex Mol. Biol. Evol., February 1, 2009; 26(2): 421 - 431. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||



