Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species
Lillith C. Zijmers, Katie L. Abson, Jarrod D. Hadfield, Adam Eyre-Walker, Roland Roberts, Roland Roberts, Roland Roberts · 2026
Read Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species by Lillith C. Zijmers, Katie L. Abson, Jarrod D. Hadfield, Adam Eyre-Walker, Roland Roberts, Roland Roberts, Roland Roberts (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13278422.txt.
Description
Lillith C Zijmers leads a 2026 analysis of how much additive genetic variation, the raw material for evolution, differs between species. The team gathered thousands of published estimates of heritability and evolvability, a scaled measure of genetic variation, covering more than two hundred multicellular species of plants and animals.
Evolvability varied a great deal between species, and much of that spread followed family relationships. Plants showed substantially higher evolvability than animals. Heritability also varied, but less sharply, and plants were not exceptional there. Tests of mutation rate, population size, genome size, and other candidate drivers found little firm evidence, though the authors note their power to detect such links was limited.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Lillith C. Zijmers, Katie L. Abson, Jarrod D. Hadfield, Adam Eyre-Walker, Roland Roberts, Roland Roberts, Roland Roberts |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 83888 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |