Fig. 6From: Evolutionary consequences of polyploidy in prokaryotes and the origin of mitosis and meiosisGene conversion rescues oligoploid populations, but can be detrimental if ploidy level is high and conversion is not frequent enough to ensure homozygosity. a In diploid population, even infrequent gene conversion is beneficial. 2-ploid_conversion01: R conv  = 0.1, each gene undergoes conversion with average probability 0.011 per generation, which is comparable with mutation rate (M = 0.007); 2-ploid_conversion1: R conv  = 1, probability of conversion is 0.11 per gene, which is 1 order of magnitude higher than the mutation rate; the population is rescued. b In 6-ploid population, conversion rates R conv  = 0.1 and 1 are detrimental, and only at R conv  = 4 (conversion probability 0.44, which is 63 times higher than the mutation rate) the population is rescued. c In 18-ploid population, even R conv  = 8 (conversion rate 0.88) is not enough to rescue the populationBack to article page