Molecular evolution is defined within population genetics as changes in allele frequencies over time driven by heritable variation passed through generations. The core theoretical mechanisms include the five principal evolutionary forces—drift, mutation, migration, recombination, and selection—as well as specific mutational processes like point mutations (transitions/transversions), indels, genomic rearrangements, horizontal gene transfer, and transposition events. These abstract principles allow for the quantification of genetic relatedness through sequence identity and similarity metrics to distinguish between orthologs diverging via speciation and paralogs resulting from duplication events within a common ancestor's lineage.
Molecular evolution is defined within population genetics as changes in allele frequencies over time driven by heritable variation passed through generations. The core theoretical mechanisms include …