Abstract:

Background: Experimental evolution is the study of evolutionary processes and consequences in experimental populations under conditions controlled by investigators. Experimental evolution is a prospective research approach, in contrast to the majority of studies in evolutionary biology that are retrospective. Given the advantages of experimental evolution, a growing number of evolutionary biologists have used this research tool to test critical hypotheses associated with the modern evolutionary synthesis.
Subjects & Field: Subjects of experimental evolution could be real or virtual organisms; and evolution experiments with real organisms can be carried out in laboratory or in the field. Microorganisms are often used as materials in experimental evolution studies because of their rapid growth and reproduction, and the ease of preservation. Experimental microbial evolution has been used to study topics including the dynamics of adaptive evolution, patterns of population differentiation and species coevolution, and even the origin of multicellularity. It also has obvious advantages in addressing the roles of contingency and determinism in evolution and predicting evolutionary processes under global change.
Conclusion: The experimental evolution approach has been used more widely in recent years, though its limitations do exist. This method will play an increasingly important role in research, industry, and education in future.

Key words: evolutionary biology, microorganisms, hypothesis testing, fitness landscapes, metabolic theory of ecology, costs of antibiotic resistance, global change, antagonistic interspecific relationships