It's interesting to read about hypothesized age of plant (and I guess animal) species based on their molecular "clock rate" (rate of mutations) in different parts of the genome.
The mutations indeed are far from random. More important regions which fundamentally affect the viability of the organism evolve incredibly slowly and conservatively. The less important bits are less restricted and mutate more readily.
Additionally it's interesting to consider an individual in the context of its lineage. Some branches are extremely rich in diversity but mightn't have the population numbers of more "boring" clades.
It's easy to mistake success at population size as the end-game, the winner if you will, of evolution. Population size helps but at the end of the day it might be the smaller population, more diverse clades that are more adaptable to environment changes and survivability into the future in general.
The mutations indeed are far from random. More important regions which fundamentally affect the viability of the organism evolve incredibly slowly and conservatively. The less important bits are less restricted and mutate more readily.
Additionally it's interesting to consider an individual in the context of its lineage. Some branches are extremely rich in diversity but mightn't have the population numbers of more "boring" clades.
It's easy to mistake success at population size as the end-game, the winner if you will, of evolution. Population size helps but at the end of the day it might be the smaller population, more diverse clades that are more adaptable to environment changes and survivability into the future in general.