The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

Guliuzza and Gaskill ◀ How organisms continuously track environmental changes ▶ 2018 ICC 178 Table 2 continued. Table 2 continued on next page. Mechanism Action Reference Research Entity Results Descriptive Extract of Function in CET Framework 8. Mutational “Hot Spots” Bias of point mutations at CpG sites that can occur at a rate that is an order of magnitude higher than the average for all other nucleotide sites which produces function-altering alleles. Galen, et al. 2015. Contribution of a mutational hot spot to hemoglobin adaptation in high-altitude Andean house wrens. PNAS Andean house wrens, Troglodytes aedon Analysis of house wren Hb highlights the influence of a 10- fold higher rate of mutation a CpG dinucleotide to any other affinity enhancing amino acid. The genetic basis of phenotypic divergence is demonstrated by a large-effect amino acid replacement that produced a significant increase in Hb–O2 affinity for high-altitude wren populations relative to lowland conspecifics. This site-specific, and repeatable, variation in mutation rate may exert a strong influence on the genetic basis for fine-tuned adaptive traits suitable to fill a broad and continuous range of an environmental condition. 9. Repeatable Synonymous Mutation Highly adaptable point mutations repeated at a specific genetic locus. Agashe, et al. 2016. Large- effect beneficial synonymous mutations mediate rapid and parallel adaptation in a bacterium. Molecular Biological Evolution Key enzyme- coding gene ( fae ) of Methylo- bacterium extorquens AM1 Synonymous variants of ( fae ) with decreased enzyme production rapidly regained activity in multiple experiments via parallel, yet variant-specific, highly beneficial genetic changes at single points within the gene. The resuslts demonstrates that single, repeatable, and highly beneficial synonymous mutations can allow organisms to rapidly adapt to environmental changes. (See also: Caspermeyer. 2016. When Silent Mutations Provide Evolutionary Advantages. Molecular Biology and Evolution ) 10. Amplified Micro-Satellite Mutation Rate Heterozygous sites mutate faster than equivalent homozygous sites resulting in increased genetic diversity. Amos. 2016. Heterozygosity increases microsatellite mutation rate. Biology Letters 1163 genome sequences from 1000 genomes utilizing the presence of rare alleles Rare alleles were more likely to be found at locus- population combinations with higher heterozygosity . "Thus, as a population expands the resulting increase in heterozygosity will drive a further increase in microsatellite mutation rate." The mechanism facilitates rapid increases in genetic diversity. It challenges the "classical population genetic theory based on the largely untested assumption that alleles mutate independently" (given that mutation rate increases as and population size heterozygosity increases) and calls into question mutation rates and timing of lineages splits and other historical factors based on mutation rates.