Q 1. Explain antibiotic resistance observed in bacteria in light of Darwinian selection theory.
Darwinian selection theory suggests that the environment selects organisms with useful variation over those which do not have useful variations. It is mainly because, in a dynamic environment, these organisms are better adapted to survive. A well-defined example for Darwin's theory is antibiotic resistance in bacteria. When bacteria were grown on penicillin containing agar medium, all the bacteria died, however, the ones having variations conferring penicillin resistance survived. Later, these bacteria multiplied and increased their number. As a result of this, penicillin-resistant bacteria evolved and survived because of the environment that selected these over the others.