Allometric scaling of somatic mutation and epimutation rates in trees

2024/10/21 by Frank Johannes · 9 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · #Allometry #Biology #Ecology #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #Evolutionary biology #Gene #Genetic diversity and population structure #Genetics #Mutation #Mutation Accumulation #Mutation rate #Scaling #Somatic cell #Species Distribution and Climate Change

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/evolut/qpae150

openalex publication_date 2024/10/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

How long-lived trees escape "mutational meltdown" despite centuries of continuous growth remains puzzling. Here we integrate recent studies to show that the yearly rate of somatic mutations and epimutations (μY) scales inversely with generation time (G), and follows the same allometric power law found in mammals (μY ∝ G-1). Deeper insights into the scaling function may permit predictions of somatic (epi)mutation rates from life-history traits without the need for genomic data.

Cited by

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• Somatic Evolution of Stem Cell Mutations in Long-Lived Plants
• Minimizing detection bias of somatic mutations in a highly heterozygous oak genome
• Minimizing detection bias of somatic mutations in a highly heterozygous oak genome. [europepmc]
• Somatic Evolution of Stem Cell Mutations in Long-Lived Plants. [europepmc]
• Branching architecture limits the number of fixed somatic mutations in trees. [europepmc]
• Accelerated growth increases the somatic epimutation rate in trees. [europepmc]
• Epimutations: raw material for evolution? [europepmc]
• Transcriptome analysis reveals DNA repair-related clues associated with divergent leaf nuclear DNA diversity in Leymus chinensis . [europepmc]

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