It has been speculated that in any particular population, relatively few genes would show observable paramutation since the high penetrance of paramutagenic alleles (like B’ at the r1 locus in maize) would drive either the paramutagenic or paramutable allele to fixation. Paramutation at other loci with paramutagenic alleles with lower penetrance may persist, however, which may need to be taken into account by plant breeders.
Since there are examples of paramutation, or paramutation-like phenomena, in animals such as fruit flies and mice, it has been suggested that paramutation may explain the occurrence of some human diseases that exhibit non-Mendelian inheritance patterns.