dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaBacteria are not Lamarckian
| Authors | Antoine Danchin |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0702032 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0702032 |
Abstract
Instructive influence of environment on heredity has been a debated topic for centuries. Darwin's identification of natural selection coupled to chance variation as the driving force for evolution, against a formal interpretation proposed by Lamarck, convinced most scientists that environment does not specifically instruct evolution in an oriented direction. This is true for multicellular organisms. In contrast, bacteria were long thought of as prone to receive oriented influences from their environment, although much was in favour of the Darwinian route (1). In this context Cairns et al. raised a passionate debate by suggesting that bacteria generate mutations oriented by the environmental conditions (2). Several independent pieces of work subsequently demonstrated that mutations overcoming specific defects arised as a consequence of cultivation on specific media (3-7). Two diametrically opposed interpretations were proposed to explain these observations : either induction of mutations instructed by the environment (e.g. by a process involving a putative reverse transcription) or selection of variants among a large set of mutant bacteria generated when stress conditions are present. The experiments presented below indicate that the Darwinian paradigm is the most plausible.
{
"annotation_id": "4e0eafd6-55e6-4883-9c83-99a6a27c6171",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:35.864000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:35.864000Z",
"file_hash": "a9a0e738d9ea63ccf3a588f9d5013f2f25b4a01a34cf525e68db044211a6ef3a",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "Instructive influence of environment on heredity has been a debated topic for\ncenturies. Darwin\u0027s identification of natural selection coupled to chance\nvariation as the driving force for evolution, against a formal interpretation\nproposed by Lamarck, convinced most scientists that environment does not\nspecifically instruct evolution in an oriented direction. This is true for\nmulticellular organisms. In contrast, bacteria were long thought of as prone to\nreceive oriented influences from their environment, although much was in favour\nof the Darwinian route (1). In this context Cairns et al. raised a passionate\ndebate by suggesting that bacteria generate mutations oriented by the\nenvironmental conditions (2). Several independent pieces of work subsequently\ndemonstrated that mutations overcoming specific defects arised as a consequence\nof cultivation on specific media (3-7). Two diametrically opposed\ninterpretations were proposed to explain these observations : either induction\nof mutations instructed by the environment (e.g. by a process involving a\nputative reverse transcription) or selection of variants among a large set of\nmutant bacteria generated when stress conditions are present. The experiments\npresented below indicate that the Darwinian paradigm is the most plausible.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0702032",
"authors": [
"Antoine Danchin"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.GN"
],
"title": "Bacteria are not Lamarckian",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0702032"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "9957a08f-219b-494d-a3ba-aa2e30dd04bd",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}