The abstract explains how new research has begun on on the factors that influence the population and evolutionary dynamics of transposable elements (TEs) and TE life cycles. What exactly are transposable elements? To answer that question (that most peeps should know the answer to) they are segments of DNA that can move from one site to another. TEs have sometimes been referred to as "jumping genes" because they are inherently mobile. Genomes have several different qualities when it comes to transposable elements, such as the number of TE copies, the level of TE activity, the diversity of TE families and types, and the proportion of old and young TEs.
The abstract focuses on two well-studied genomes with strikingly different architectures, (humans and Drosophila) which represent two extremes in terms of TE diversity and population dynamics. According to the abstract, researchers argue that there are two possibilities for the answers: (1) the larger population size and consequently more effective selection against new TE insertions due to ectopic recombination in flies compared to humans; and (2) in the faster rate of DNA loss in flies compared to humans leading to much faster removal of fixed TE copies from the fly genome.
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