micro help

mutation is what helps an organism be adapted to their environment ...it is vertical gene transfer... this leads to slightly different species in the next evolutionary generation...

recombination can occurr between 2 organism of the same species ( eg crossing over in sex)  or different species ( like prehistoric bacteria and eukaryotes ) ... this is like horizontal gene transfer ...this leads to differences between species in the same generation of evolution ... or a different species having arisen because of gene transfer  between different species.....

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so what all this means is that mutation and recombination are what causes diversity and change, enabling life to adapt to their environment, thus ensuring the survival of their genes ( that is thru survival of themselves and thru survival of their offsprings ), and thus evolution