Fig. 1

Corrected waiting time to fixation for a string of five nucleotides, across different mutation rates. Mutation rate is equal to mutations per diploid string per generation. Waiting times were adjusted proportional to the mutation rate enhancement (see text). Both scales are log10. (note: bottom scale moves from a highly unrealistic mutation rate (far left), to the actual mutation rate (far right). Extrapolation was necessary to determine the waiting time for the data point on the far right (open red circle) – which reflects the actual biological mutations rate. We anticipated that the line of best fit would be a horizontal line. The slope of the observed line of best fit is sloping upwards slightly – due to drift-induced string homogenization. The 95 % confidence intervals are shown, but are at best barely visible