Research Topic · Peer-Reviewed

Evolutionary Rates

Evolutionary rates describe how quickly genetic and phenotypic change accumulates in lineages over time, quantifying the pace at which mutations arise and become fixed, sequences diverge, and morphological traits are modified. Measuring these rates allows researchers to compare the tempo of change among genes, prote…

Curated from this journal's research 📚 8 peer-reviewed articles cited Cited 50× across the literature 🔖 ISSN 2689-4602 🗓 Reviewed July 2026

Overview

Evolutionary rates describe how quickly genetic and phenotypic change accumulates in lineages over time, quantifying the pace at which mutations arise and become fixed, sequences diverge, and morphological traits are modified. Measuring these rates allows researchers to compare the tempo of change among genes, proteins, and lineages, to estimate the timing of divergence events, and to infer the relative influence of mutation, selection, and drift on observed differences. Molecular rate variation is a central focus, and comparative analyses of protein-domain conservation, gene architecture, and phylogenetic distribution, as in the study of RBM45 across metazoans, reveal how some sequences are strongly conserved while others change more rapidly, reflecting differing functional constraints. The conservation of regulatory genes such as Hox across vertebrates similarly illustrates slow rates of change in developmentally critical sequences. Evolutionary rates connect to questions of speciation and divergence explored through ontogenes and models of speciation in Drosophila, and to debates over the role of natural selection as a driver of evolutionary process. Unusual external influences on the rate of genetic change, including interactions between natural nuclear reactors and microbial evolution, further illustrate factors that can modulate mutation and divergence. By characterizing the speed of evolutionary change, the study of evolutionary rates underpins phylogenetic inference, molecular dating, and the understanding of how constraint and selection shape genomes and forms.

Research published in this journal

8 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.

2019

Ontogenes and the Problem of Speciation

F Chadov BorisCorresponding author
Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Department of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090, Russian Federation.
Evolutionary Science Cited by 15 doi:10.14302/issn.2689-4602.jes-18-2431
2018

Evolution of the Concept of Evolution

Mikhailovsky GeorgeCorresponding author
Global Mind Share, Norfolk, VA, United States
Evolutionary Science doi:10.14302/issn.2689-4602.jes-18-2229

How this research is being cited

The 8 articles above have been cited 50 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.

A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Evolutionary Rates, linking to each citing work.

Editorial oversight

Curated from peer-reviewed research published in Evolutionary Science (ISSN 2689-4602).

Journal editorial board
Maria Luisa Chiusano · Italy Adina-Elena Segneanu · Romania George Mikhailovsky · United States

This page summarises published research for orientation; it is not medical or professional advice.