Utah State University Apr 18 2025 Understanding the material basis of adaptive evolution has been a central goal in biology dating back to at least the time of Darwin. One focus of current debates is whether adaptive evolution relies on many mutations with small and roughly equal effects, or is it driven by one or a few mutations that cause major changes in traits. Chromosomal rearrangements where large chunks of chromosomes are inverted, moved, deleted or duplicated, provide a possible source