The rate of nucleotide substitutions genome-wide is estimated at 30–100 per generation (Conrad et al., 2011) and ~1 per exome. In contrast, the global rate of structural mutation events is lower: CNVs >10 Kb in size occur at a rate of ~0.01–0.02 per generation.(Itsara et al., 2010; Levy et al., 2011; Marshall et al., 2008; Sanders et al., 2011; Sebat et al., 2007). New retrotransposon insertions probably account for the majority of smaller events, with short (300 basepairs) Alu repeat insertions occurring at a rate of 0.05 per generation (Cordaux and Batzer, 2009) and longer (1000–9000 bp) L1 insertions occurring at a rate of 0.01–0.05. per generation (Beck et al., 2011). Thus, we estimate that the rate of the multiple classes of structural mutation combined is 0.07–0.12 per generation.
