However, mutation rates vary and can be selected. They aren’t simply a constraint.
Also, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about this and I may be wrong, but aren’t you talking about 1 bit per linkage group and not one bit per genome? (And the size of linkage groups also varies and can be selected.)
Some viruse genomes face severe constraints on size—they have a container they must fit into—say an icosahedral shape—and it would be a big step to increase that size. And some of those make proteins off both strands of DNA and sometimes in more than one reading frame. 3 proteins from the same DNA sequence. Presumably each protein is less efficient than it might be if the DNA evolved to make it alone, but they do an adequate job of reproducing the virus.
Probably size constraints can usually be fudged better than that.
You can make mathematical theories about evolution, but they’re highly sensitive to their beginning assumptions. It’s too soon to say how far evolution has gone to produce genetic mechanisms that let evolution proceed more efficiently.
However, mutation rates vary and can be selected. They aren’t simply a constraint.
Also, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about this and I may be wrong, but aren’t you talking about 1 bit per linkage group and not one bit per genome? (And the size of linkage groups also varies and can be selected.)
Some viruse genomes face severe constraints on size—they have a container they must fit into—say an icosahedral shape—and it would be a big step to increase that size. And some of those make proteins off both strands of DNA and sometimes in more than one reading frame. 3 proteins from the same DNA sequence. Presumably each protein is less efficient than it might be if the DNA evolved to make it alone, but they do an adequate job of reproducing the virus.
Probably size constraints can usually be fudged better than that.
You can make mathematical theories about evolution, but they’re highly sensitive to their beginning assumptions. It’s too soon to say how far evolution has gone to produce genetic mechanisms that let evolution proceed more efficiently.