Question

Some bacteria may be able to respond to environmental stress by increasing the rate at which mutations occur during cell division. How might this be accomplished? Might there be an evolutionary advantage to this ability? Explain.

Short answer

Some bacteria tend to survive within the environmental stress that increases the mutation rate via stress-induced mutagenesis.

The evolutionary advantage of stress-induced mutagenesis is that it can increase genetic variation, increasing the survival ability of the bacteria.

Step-by-step solution

Description of cell division and mutation

Cell division is the process that forms the new cells from the existing cells by forming a septum within the cells. The daughter cells are identical to the parent cells.

The mutation is the undesirable change due to radiation exposure or other stress conditions to the organism.

Stress-induced mutagenesis

The changes that happen in the genetic material due to the mutation process are known as mutagenesis. It happens due to mutagenic exposure to the cells.

Stress-induced mutagenesis is the mutation that occurs in an organism due to environmental stress.

Evolutionary advantage of the stress-induced mutagenesis

An organism such as bacteria is susceptible to stress-induced mutagenesis. Bacteria are organism that survives in changing environments. The bacterium must undergo various mutations to increase its survival rate among stressful conditions to stay in the changing environment.

From the evolutionary aspects, stress-induced mutagenesis plays a vital role in increasing the survival ability of the bacteria to tackle environmental stress—the genetic diversity of the bacteria increases due to the mutation processes.

Hence, the mutations that occur in the bacteria have an evolutionary advantage to increase the genetic diversity of the bacteria, which in turn increases the mutation ability.