BioConcepts

ratchet mechanismRatschenmechanismus (ger.)

• The accumulation of disadvantageous mutations in populations of asexually reproducing organisms. (HWB 2011)
  category sex

  1964

  an asexual population incorporates a kind of ratchet mechanism, such that it can never get to contain, in any of its lines, a load of mutations smaller than that already existing in its at present least-loaded lines

  Muller, H.J. (1964). The relation of recombination to mutational advance. Mutation Res. 1, 2-9: 8; cf. id (1958). Evolution by mutation. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 64, 137-160.

  1974

  Muller’s ratchet

  Felsenstein, J. (1974). The evolutionary advantage of recombination. Genetics 78, 737-756: 746.

  1978

  Müllers Ratsche

  Maynard Smith, J. (1978). Ökologie der Sexualität. In: Krebs, J.R. & Davies, N.B. (eds.) (1981). Öko-Ethologie, 131-146: 131.