This study identifies the spo0F(H101R) allele as the signature of a deliberate selection during the development of B. atrophaeus as a simulant. However, without the knowledge of the history and the analysis of the phenotypes of the strains originating from ''Camp Detrick'' as published in the open literature, attribution of this genotype to a deliberate selection event would not have been definitive, since a similar phenotype is observed in the 1013 lineage which to our knowledge was not deliberately selected for any specific trait. Any study designed to determine genomic ''signatures'' of deliberate enhancement or selection is likely to require an analysis of the baseline likelihood that mutations conferring a similar phenotype would emerge and become fixed by natural processes within an evolutionary timeframe consistent with a known time interval or number of passages.