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katty katty
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Posts: 51
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12 years ago
Patient A is provided with an antibiotic medication to treat an ear infection. Several years later a similar infection is treated with the same antibiotic. The patient take the antibiotic over a longer period and in greater strength. The infection does not clear. The bacteria causing the infection is said to have "developed" resistance to the antibiotic.

Q does the microbe resistance provide evidence of "evolution"? write an explanation to support your response.
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wrote...
12 years ago
Q does the microbe resistance provide evidence of "evolution"? write an explanation to support your response.

I'm going to assume you mean antibiotic resistance. Consider this:

Penicillin was introduced in the 1940s

The first penicillin resistant bacteria was descirbed in 1943

Between 1979 and 1984 .02% of bacteria found in hospitals was antibiotic resistant

by 1994 6.6% of bacteria found in hospitals was antibiotic resistant.

Clearly antibiiotics act as a selection pressure. If any bacteria mutates to develop resistance to antibiotics, they have a clear selective advantage over other bacteria. Not surprisingly, after 50 years an increasing number of bacteria have evolved antibiotic resistance. Looks like pretty good evidence to me.
wrote...
12 years ago
In response to the above answer, many antibiotics are naturally synthesized by fungi (like penicillin) expressly to combat bacteria. This chemical warfare has been going on for billions of years. Knowing that fungi and bacteria coevolved, seeing resistant bacteria from ancient days is exactly what you'd expect. If we didn't see it I'd be worried. By looking at the bacterial plasmids, we can trace this resistance and compare it to the resistance of modern-day drugs so this does not in anyway detract from evolution - it supports it.

Ancient human populations also (unknowingly) had antibiotics in their diet from eating moldy grain (as well as several nasty mycotoxins).
wrote...
12 years ago
Yes. The microbe changes its makeup to adapt to the presence of anti-microbials, and those that survive populate, giving evidence of evolution. However, note that this is evidence of micro-evolution and not of macroevolution.
katty Author
wrote...
12 years ago
Thank you so much, i thought that was the right answer, im doing a project and that was one of the questions: i have another one if you's are able to help me

2)Bacteria and insects are exposed to pesticides and antibiotics ( toxins). In response, some bacteria and insects adapt, or change to resist the toxins designed to destroy them. The scientific community explains that drug- resistance is proof of the evolution of strains of bacteria. The new "superbugs" withstand powerful drug regimes and chemicals they would have succumbed to in the past

Resistance can be explained using evolutionary theory. Organisms adapt by developing additional capabilities, functional structures, or other complexities that enable them to resist the antibiotics and chemicals

There is a change or something new in the capability structure or complexity of the organism.Apply modern evolutionary theory to explain the recent appearance of antibiotic resistant bacteria populations of clostridium difficile (c. difficile)?
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