ExploringtheEffectsofMutationRateonPopulations：探索对种群的变异率的影响.pdfVIP

Exploring the Effects of Mutation Rate on Populations Lesson Overview This lesson allows students to explore relationships between mutation rate and fitness and how each influences the evolution of a population over time. Big Ideas Fitness is, simply stated, a relative measure of an organism’s ability to survive and, ultimately, reproduce in the environment in which it lives. Some organisms are more fit than others in the same population due to variation in traits that contribute to survival and reproduction. Traits that confer a reproductive advantage are more likely to spread throughout the population and result in higher relative individual fitness. Thus, fitness is tied closely to genetic variation, the origin of which is random mutation. The rate of mutation in a population can have significant effects on average population fitness. For example, as mutation rate increases the average population fitness will tend to decrease due to a higher incidence of harmful mutations. However, because mutations are random, it is possible for average fitness in a population to increase despite a high mutation rate. Therefore, we should expect to see a distribution of average fitness values for populations evolving at various mutation rates. The effect of mutation rate on population size is even more pronounced. Being subjected to a lot of mutations can lead to decreased growth rates and heightened mortality; therefore, population size also tends to decrease as mutation rate increases, though here too we should expect to see a distribution in population numbers. Objectives for Student Learning Through engagement in this lesson, students will: • Explain what fitness is and how it is connected to variation (mutations). • Predict and explain the effects of mutation rate on population siz