Evolution Observed In The Lab
A major evolutionary shift has been observed in a laboratory setting for the first time.
Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.
The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.
Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.
But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolize citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.
So much for Creationism aka Intelligent Design.
Suck it, Fundies!
Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab