The dominance of the population by a selected few: power-law behaviour applies to a wide variety of genomic properties

The sequencing of genomes provides us with an inventory of the 'molecular parts' in nature, such as protein families and folds, and their functions in living organisms. The genomic occurrence of generalized parts follows a well-known mathematical framework called the power law, with a few parts occurring many times and most occurring only a few times. Cases of power-law behavior, were found, for example in the occurrence of pseudogenes and in levels of gene expression.