Figure 4.

Correlation between the number of genes in an organism and its duplication/deletion rates. Evolutionary parameters r_dup/$\overline{\mu }$ (open diamonds), r_del/$\overline{\mu }$ (filled circles), $r_{\text{dup}}^{\ast }/\overline{\mu }$ (open squares), and $r_{\text{del}}^{\ast }/\overline{\mu }$ (filled triangles) plotted versus the total number of genes N_genes in an organism. Organisms in the order of increasing number of genes are H. pylori, E. coli, S. cerevisiae, D. melanogaster, C. elegans, and H. sapiens. As explained in the text, more complex organisms (those with larger N_genes) tend to be characterized by higher values of the first three ratios but lower values of the last ratio.