ABSTRACT
Evolution of bacteria encompasses the ability to respond and adapt. Evolution is the survival of the population by using what has already been obtained in the genetic material. Bacterial genomes can evolve slowly. They have the potential to be very stable, to be very slow-changing, and to have only a few base pair changes appear in their genome over thousands of generations. DNA replication can have very high fidelity, enabling the genome to be copied accurately from generation to generation. In contrast, bacterial genomes can also evolve very quickly in a very short time span, with bacterial genomes having the capacity for mutations to occur and to be tolerated, so long as they provide a selective advantage, or at least do not provide a disadvantage to the bacterial cell or the bacterial population. Changes in the bacterial genome can arise during evolution via mutation and horizontal gene transfer and recombination.
