Probabilistic Methods for Bioinformatics

Chapter 9 Nonmolecular Evolutionary Genetics

Evolution is the process of change in the genetic makeup of populations, Evolutionary genetics is the study of this change. In nonmolecular evolutionary genetics, we look only at the level of the allele and study how alleles might replace other alleles over time. In molecular evolutionary genetics, we investigate how nucleotide sequences change over time. In this chapter we discuss nonmolecular evolutionary genetics; in the next chapter we discuss molecular evolutionary genetics.

It is believed that the changes in genetic makeup are due to mutations. We discuss two possible means by which mutations ...