The Rate of Spontaneous Mutation for Life-History Traits in Caenorhabditis elegans

Corresponding author: Larissa L. Vassilieva, Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403., larissa{at}darkwing.uoregon.edu (E-mail)

Communicating editor: P. D. KEIGHTLEY

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.

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