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MBE Advance Access published online on December 20, 2005
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msj083
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Accepted December 12, 2005

Research Article

What is the Role of Genome Duplication in the Evolution of Complexity and Diversity?

Karen D Crow 1 * and Günter P. Wagner 1

1 Yale University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 165 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Karen D Crow, E-mail: karen.crow{at}yale.edu


  Abstract

Gene and genome duplications provide a source of genetic material for mutation, drift, and selection to act upon, making new evolutionary opportunities possible. As a result many have argued that genome duplication is a dominant factor in the evolution of complexity and diversity. However, a clear correlation between a genome duplication event and increased complexity and diversity is not apparent, and there are inconsistencies in the patterns of diversity invoked to support this claim. Interestingly, several estimates of genome duplication events in vertebrates are preceded by multiple extinct lineages, resulting in pre-duplication gaps in extant taxa. Here we argue that gen(om)e duplication could contribute to reduced risk of extinction-such as functional redundancy, mutational robustness, increased rates of evolution, and adaptation. The timeline for these processes to unfold would not predict immediate increases in species diversity after the duplication event. Rather, reduced probabilities of extinction would predict a latent period between a genome duplication and its effect on species diversity or complexity. In this paper we will develop the idea that genome duplication could contribute to species diversity through reduced probability of extinction.

Keywords: genome duplication; extinction.
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