Motoo Kimura and evolutionary theory (Q1914180)

Motoo Kimura died in November 1994. This issue of the Journal is devoted to him with five articles from friends, colleagues, or disciples, J. F. Crow (his doctor mentor), T. Ohta and J. H. Gillispie, T. H. Jukes, G. A. Watterson, W.-H. Li, which are succinctly reviewed here. Kimura's main contribution to population evolution is the neutral theory of molecular evolution, he also contributed to modelling of forces in the natural selection, mutation migration, to multigene interactions, the analysis of quantitative inheritance, the development of methods of phylogenetic reconstruction and the dissection of the influence on evolutionary processes in population structure. He extensively applied diffusing analysis to the study of stochastic genetic models, and included analysis of random sampling effects due to small population size, of the balance in small population of recurrent mutation and random genetic drift, of the number of mutants maintained in a population of the time to detection of a mutant deleterious gene, and of conditioned diffusion processes and fluctuating selection intensities over successive generations that are due to random and/or systematic environmental changes.