Motoo Kimura

Motoo Kimura (1924–1994) was a Japanese population geneticist who founded the neutral theory of molecular evolution, emphasizing genetic drift in the spread of selectively neutral mutations.

Tomoko Ohta: A Japanese evolutionary biologist who developed nearly neutral theory, extending Kimura’s account of molecular evolution. Her theory refined Kimura’s neutralism by emphasizing mutations with very weak effects.
Genetic drift: Random changes in allele frequencies caused by finite sampling across generations. Drift is the process that can fix neutral mutations without natural selection.
Population genetics: The study of genetic variation within populations and how evolutionary processes change it over time. Kimura’s arguments use population-genetic models to explain molecular change.
Nearly neutral theory: An evolutionary theory in which mutations with small fitness effects can behave as effectively neutral, depending on population size. Ohta’s extension explains why weakly deleterious changes may fix, especially in small populations.
Molecular population genetics: The study of genetic variation at the molecular level within and between populations. Kimura’s framework helped make DNA and protein variation central evidence in population genetics.
J. B. S. Haldane: A British geneticist who helped establish mathematical population genetics and developed models of natural selection. His selectionist framework helped define the debate Kimura’s neutral theory challenged.
Neutral mutation: A genetic change that does not affect an organism’s reproductive success in a given environment. Kimura’s theory explains molecular evolution chiefly through mutations of this kind.
Natural selection: The differential survival and reproduction of heritable variants that changes their frequencies across generations. Neutral theory distinguishes drift-driven substitutions from changes driven by adaptive selection.
Adaptive evolution: Evolutionary change caused by natural selection favoring heritable variants that increase reproductive success. It contrasts with Kimura’s claim that most molecular substitutions are selectively neutral.
Synonymous substitution: A nucleotide substitution in a coding sequence that does not change the encoded amino acid. Such substitutions often approximate neutral change, though they can also be selected.

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Neutral theory of molecular evolutionRelated: Kimura formulated the theory and argued that much molecular change is neutral.