Muller's ratchet
Accumulation of harmful mutations / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Muller’s ratchet?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
In evolutionary genetics, Muller's ratchet (named after Hermann Joseph Muller, by analogy with a ratchet effect) is a process which, in the absence of recombination (especially in an asexual population), results in an accumulation of irreversible deleterious mutations.[1][2] This happens because in the absence of recombination, and assuming reverse mutations are rare, offspring bear at least as much mutational load as their parents.[2] Muller proposed this mechanism as one reason why sexual reproduction may be favored over asexual reproduction, as sexual organisms benefit from recombination and consequent elimination of deleterious mutations. The negative effect of accumulating irreversible deleterious mutations may not be prevalent in organisms which, while they reproduce asexually, also undergo other forms of recombination. This effect has also been observed in those regions of the genomes of sexual organisms that do not undergo recombination.