Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Evolution of New Traits in Microbes01:24

Evolution of New Traits in Microbes

Microorganisms evolve rapidly due to their large population sizes and short generation times, often exhibiting measurable changes within days under laboratory conditions. Natural selection acts on standing genetic variation, enabling the retention and amplification of beneficial traits that confer fitness advantages in changing environments.Adaptive Pigment Regulation in RhodobacterIn Rhodobacter, a genus of purple non-sulfur bacteria, light-harvesting pigments such as bacteriochlorophyll and...
Transduction01:16

Transduction

Among the three main modes of HGT—transformation, conjugation, and transduction—transduction is unique in that it is mediated by bacteriophages, or bacterial viruses.Transduction occurs in two ways. Generalized transduction occurs during the lytic cycle of a bacteriophage infection. In this process, bacteriophages infect bacterial cells, replicate within them, and ultimately cause cell lysis, releasing newly assembled virions. Occasionally, random fragments of the bacterial genome are...
Evolutionary Processes in Microbes01:26

Evolutionary Processes in Microbes

Microbial evolution occurs rapidly due to short generation times and a variety of genetic processes, including horizontal gene transfer, mutation, recombination, and genetic drift. These mechanisms collectively enable microbes to adapt swiftly to changing environments.Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) allows genes to move between different species and occurs through three main mechanisms: conjugation, transformation, and transduction. Conjugation involves direct cell-to-cell contact for DNA...
Genetics of Speciation02:16

Genetics of Speciation

Speciation is the evolutionary process resulting in the formation of new, distinct species—groups of reproductively isolated populations.
Deep Sea Microbial Ecology01:18

Deep Sea Microbial Ecology

The deep ocean and its underlying sediments represent vast, largely unexplored microbial habitats that extend far beyond the sunlit photic zone. The photic (euphotic) zone typically spans the upper ~100–200 meters of pelagic waters in the open ocean, but its depth varies geographically and seasonally, where sufficient light supports photosynthetic life. Below this lies the deep sea, spanning roughly 1000–6000 meters (bathypelagic to abyssal zones), with deeper hadal trenches extending beyond...
Antibiotic Selection00:57

Antibiotic Selection

Overview

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Metronidazole response profiles of Gardnerella species are congruent with phylogenetic and comparative genomic analyses.

Genome medicine·2025
Same author

Epidemiologic and Genomic Evidence for Zoonotic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among People and Animals on a Michigan Mink Farm, United States, 2020.

Viruses·2023
Same author

One Health Investigation of SARS-CoV-2 in People and Animals on Multiple Mink Farms in Utah.

Viruses·2023
Same author

Benchmark datasets for SARS-CoV-2 surveillance bioinformatics.

PeerJ·2022
Same author

Invasive Meningococcal Disease Among People Experiencing Homelessness-United States, 2016-2019.

The Journal of infectious diseases·2022
Same author

Antimicrobial Susceptibility Survey of Invasive Haemophilus influenzae in the United States in 2016.

Microbiology spectrum·2022
Same journal

Evolution of CTCF binding sites in the human genome.

Molecular biology and evolution·2026
Same journal

Recent plastid replacement in Karlodinium ballantinum (Kareniaceae, Dinoflagellata) challenges the paradigms of endosymbiotic gene transfer.

Molecular biology and evolution·2026
Same journal

Segmentally Duplicated Regulatory Elements Undergo Human-Specific Rewiring.

Molecular biology and evolution·2026
Same journal

The life history of recessive deleterious alleles as seen through the eyes of a honey bee (Apis mellifera).

Molecular biology and evolution·2026
Same journal

Severe bottleneck of ancient Homo populations: Insights from computational modeling and relevant fossil evidence.

Molecular biology and evolution·2026
Same journal

Population Epigenetics: Deciphering DNA Methylation Diversity and its Implications for Health, Disease, and Evolution.

Molecular biology and evolution·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 21, 2026

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
15:00

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli

Published on: August 18, 2023

Ecological adaptation in bacteria: speciation driven by codon selection.

Adam C Retchless1, Jeffrey G Lawrence

  • 1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, USA.

Molecular Biology and Evolution
|June 29, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Bacterial adaptation involves gene acquisition and changes in codon selection, driving ecological differentiation and speciation. These processes create genetic isolation by reducing recombination, even beyond acquired genes.

More Related Videos

Adaptation at the Extremes of Life: Experimental Evolution with the Extremophile Archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius
08:11

Adaptation at the Extremes of Life: Experimental Evolution with the Extremophile Archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius

Published on: June 14, 2024

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains
06:45

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains

Published on: January 18, 2014

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 21, 2026

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
15:00

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli

Published on: August 18, 2023

Adaptation at the Extremes of Life: Experimental Evolution with the Extremophile Archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius
08:11

Adaptation at the Extremes of Life: Experimental Evolution with the Extremophile Archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius

Published on: June 14, 2024

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains
06:45

Monitoring Intraspecies Competition in a Bacterial Cell Population by Cocultivation of Fluorescently Labelled Strains

Published on: January 18, 2014

Area of Science:

  • Microbial Evolution
  • Genomics
  • Speciation

Background:

  • Bacterial adaptation can occur through gene acquisition, leading to ecological differentiation without immediate genetic isolation.
  • Gene acquisition primarily explains recombination interference near integration sites, but other genomic regions also contribute to adaptive divergence.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify additional loci contributing to adaptive differences in bacteria beyond gene acquisition.
  • To investigate the role of codon selection in bacterial speciation and genome evolution.

Main Methods:

  • Examined orthologous genes in Enterobacteriaceae species.
  • Assessed codon selection significance using the Adaptive Codon Enrichment metric.
  • Analyzed codon usage bias variations and their correlation with gene operons and environmental adaptation.

Main Results:

  • Identified significant differences in codon usage bias in more genes than expected by chance.
  • Observed parallel codon usage bias changes in genes within the same operon, suggesting altered gene expression.
  • Found most significant codon selection differences in genes related to environmental adaptations, not housekeeping genes.

Conclusions:

  • Codon selection changes, influenced by habitat, play a significant role in bacterial adaptation and speciation.
  • A two-stage model proposes gene acquisition followed by altered gene utilization and codon selection drives bacterial divergence and genetic isolation.