Polyploidy and Mutations

Abstract

The survival rates of different types of mutations are very different in diploid and polyploid plants, diploid and haplo-diploid animals. The mutations of poly-ploids are believed to be largely chromosome aberrations. Various differences between polyploids and diploids are stressed. Recessive gene mutations have great difficulty in finding expression in polyploids, and gene changes that do not express themselves cannot be subject to positive or negative selection pressures. Polyploids, therefore, should not be of great importance in further evolution. Opposed to this point of view are the concepts (1) that gene mutations are not important in the larger aspects of evolution, and (2) that polyploidy may be of evolutionary importance in providing for the differentiation of new genes.