Experiments with microorganisms can guide thinking about the big questions being tackled by evolutionary biologists — for instance, how predation and immigration might play a role in adaptive radiation. What accounts for biodiversity? Why do lineages of organisms diversify, and why are some lineages more species-rich than others? Charles Darwin was asking these questions 150 years ago, and we continue to do so today. Since Darwin, however, biologists have developed different theoretical and practical ways of tackling them, with experiments involving microbial systems featuring among the latter.
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