Table 1.

Some Examples of a Range of Mutation Rates and Evolutionary Rates Determined for Different Groups of Viruses

Group	Virus	Mutation Rates (Mutations per Nucleotide per Replication Cycle)	Evolutionary Rate (Substitutions per Nucleotide Site per Year)
Positive-stranded RNA	Poliovirus 1	2.2 × 10−5–3 × 10−4	1.17 × 10−2
Negative-stranded RNA	Influenza A virus	7.1 × 10−6–3.9 × 10−5	9 × 10−4–7.84 × 10−3
Retrovirus	Human immunodeficiency virus 1	7.3 × 10−7–1.0 × 10−4	1.13 × 10−3–1.08 × 10−2
Single-stranded DNA	Bacteriophage phiX174	1 × 10−6–1.3 × 10−6	Unknown
Double-stranded DNA	Herpes simplex 1	5.9 × 10−8	8.21 × 10−5

Data taken from the VirMut website (http://www.uv.es/rasanve2/virmut.htm) (Sanjuan et al., 2010; Sanjuan, 2012).