Ever wondered how it is that organisms have been able to adapt to so many of the changes that our world has undergone since their creation? How is it the new species have evolved through all of the changing environments?
Of course Darwin proposed an answer to this question with his accredited ‘Natural Selection’ theory which says that animals that have a mutation that increases their fitness within that environment will be selected for, thus leading to the whole populations’ adaptation and possibly evolution into a new species.
While this theory makes sense, how is it that a mutation happens to be there at exactly the right time?
An article by Hersh, Ponder, Hastings and Rosenberg outlines an experiment conducted that showed that perhaps the randomness in timing of these mutations may not in fact be as arbitrary as Darwin surmised. It may be that the SOS response to mutations or stresses from the environment involves up regulating proteins that lead to more mutations (and hence adaptations) to possibly counteract the stress being put on the organism. The article brings to light the fact that organisms may not be innocent bystanders to environmental pressures; they may in fact be programmed to adapt and survive and hence mutations become the solution as well as the problem.
Student Number: 41164772
REFERENCES
PRIMARY: Hersch.M.N.,Ponder.R.G.,Hastings.P.J.,Rosenberg.S.M.(2004),Adaptive mutation and amplification in Escherichia coli: two pathways of genome adaptation under stress,Research in Microbiology,155(5),352-359
SECONDARY: Gene, M.(2005), Evolution under intrinsic control
