Furthermore, studies have reported that under certain conditions, the environment-induced phenotypes are genetically fixed through genetic assimilation, suggesting that developmental plasticity may accelerate adaptive evolution [ 13].
The drawbacks are that the genome loses the benefits of TEs as a source of variations, and the benefits of having multigenic families - although in some conditions RIP may accelerate allele evolution [ 132].
Alternatively, the same correlations may coordinate and perhaps accelerate evolution of a module [43], which, assuming that environmental conditions and selection pressures are comparable, would be expected to result in more rapid and thus greater diffusion through possible morphospace.
Such mass extinctions may have accelerated evolution by providing opportunities for new groups of organisms to diversify.
Therefore different mitotypes in the cell accumulate as a reservoir of genetic variability and may undergo accelerated evolution [ 20].
Diversity is key to drive change and accelerate evolution.
Gene conversion with pseudogenes may accelerate gene family evolution; in this model, pseudogenes are postulated as a source of genetic information.
The emergence of longer RNA strings could have proceeded not only via polymerization but also through spontaneous rearrangements of RNA sequences that may progress in the absence of any enzymes or ribozymes [ 351- 353]; such rearrangements may have dramatically accelerated evolution [ 57, 354].
Our analysis suggests it is possible that, under the insular dwarfism model, the only unexpected aspect of H. floresiensis' evolution is the rate at which brain mass decreased, however some evidence suggests morphological evolution may accelerate on islands [ 88].
Furthermore, the ancestral MATa locus may have undergone accelerated evolution prior to the divergence of the pathogenic Cryptococcus species since several of the genes linked to the MATa locus appear to have a higher number of changes and substitutions than their MATα counterparts.
