Why are RNA virus mutation rates so damn high?
Fig 1
Biological mutation rates summarized from fastest to slowest: Viroid (RNA elements that cause some plant disease without encoding any genes), viruses (RNA shown as Ebola, single-stranded DNA shown as an icosohedron, and double-stranded DNA shown as a myophage), prokaryotes (rod-shaped bacteria), and eukaryotes (rodent).
Icons are roughly the size of the range of mutation rates and genome sizes of measured organisms within that group. Axes are log-transformed, data as in [3]. Images are in the public domain except viroid [4], single-stranded DNA virus (icon made by Pixel perfect, www.flaticon.com), and rodent (icon made by Freepik, www.flaticon.com).
doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000003.g001