Darwin Proved Right Yet Again By Bacteria That Didn't Evolve

It may seem counterintuitive but organisms which have not evolved for billions of years may prove Darwin right.

According to Daily Mail, UCLA scientists have found a community of sulfur bacteria living under the ocean floor which has not evolved for 2.3 billion years. The findings were made based on examination of fossils from Western Australia dating to 2.3 billion years and 1.8 billion years ago, and a colony now living in the sediments under Chile's coast. The fossils and the living descendants are the same in form and function.

"It seems astounding that life has not evolved for more than 2 billion years - nearly half the history of the Earth. Given that evolution is a fact, this lack of evolution needs to be explained," said J. William Schopf, the study's lead author, in a news release.

In order to explain the apparent lack of evolution, researchers resort to Darwin who proposed that changing environment dictates changing biology. As the environment of the bacteria has remained the same for billions of years, the organisms did not evolve.

"The rule of biology is not to evolve unless the physical or biological environment changes, which is consistent with Darwin," said.

The sediments under the ocean floor are not affected by changes above the surface like ice age or warming. They reproduce asexually resulting in minimum genetic exchange, and require only nitrate and sulfur for survival, LA Times reports.

"These microorganisms are well-adapted to their simple, very stable physical and biological environment. If they were in an environment that did not change but they nevertheless evolved, that would have shown that our understanding of Darwinian evolution was seriously flawed," Schopf added.