Table of Contents An understanding of evolution at the molecular
level requires the simultaneous consideration of the 5
fundamental evolutionary processes: mutation, recombination,
natural selection, genetic drift, and population dynamic
effects. Experimental, comparative genomic, and population
genetic work in C. elegans has greatly expanded our
understanding of these core processes, as well as of C. elegans
biology. This chapter presents a brief overview of some of the
most salient features of molecular evolution elucidated by the
C. elegans system. Molecular evolution is the study of change-
over-time in DNA sequence-based features, be they nucleotide
variant frequencies in a population or divergence of loci
between reproductively isolated lineages. This field has a rich
theoretical history, and intertwines with classical and
molecular population genetics and comparative genomics (Avise,
2004; Fisher, 1958; Gibson and Muse, 2002; Hartl and Clark,
2007; Li, 1997; Lynch, 2007). Facilitated by C. elegans' expe