We
provided a table showing the number of variable positions for rRNA sequences
of diverse taxonomic groups, along with the estimated alpha parameter of
these sequences. The observed inhomogeneity was not due to a sampling effect,
as showed by the following table, where the same parameters have been computed
for all available sequences.
| Group | VP1 | VP2 | Alpha1 | Alpha2 |
| Mycetozoa | 280 | 296 | 0.79 | 0.59 |
| Choanoflagellates |
60
|
89
|
0.14
|
0.29
|
| Bilateria |
93
|
241
|
0.12
|
0.26
|
| Diploblasts |
60
|
166
|
0.19
|
0.20
|
| Chlorobionta |
42
|
209
|
0.10
|
0.63
|
| Euryotes |
254
|
362
|
0.63
|
0.46
|
| Crenotes |
199
|
311
|
0.55
|
0.44
|
| Fungi |
56
|
254
|
0.30
|
0.30
|
| Rhodobionta |
78
|
197
|
0.19
|
0.26
|
| Ciliates |
89
|
242
|
0.15
|
0.41
|
| Stramenopiles |
55
|
190
|
0.10
|
0.19
|
| Filose amoeba |
84
|
184
|
0.20
|
0.69
|
| Euglenozoa |
332
|
349
|
1.41
|
1.19
|
| Apicomplexa |
57
|
202
|
0.37
|
0.58
|
| Trichomonads |
174
|
231
|
2.37
|
0.31
|
| Diplomonads |
388
|
446
|
1.22
|
1.09
|
| Haptophyta |
36
|
49
|
0.003
|
0.07
|
| Microsporidia |
373
|
509
|
1.20
|
0.82
|
| Percolozoa |
270
|
276
|
99
|
99
|
When using all available
sequences, the number of variable positions obviously increases, but the
estimated alpha parameters are not more homogeneous. As a matter of fact,
the correlation coefficient between Alpha1 and Alpha2 is R=0.48, showing
that the sampling bias is not responsible for the observed discrepancies.