YOU don't have to travel far these days to study evolution. In fact you don't even have to venture outdoors. A colony of bacteria growing in a dish of agar should do just fine. Okay, so it might be great fun to seek out exotic species on the GalApagos Islands or in the Amazonian rainforest. But whether you are peering through binoculars at a baboon's backside or staring down a microscope into a piece of over-populated plastic, the fundamentals remain the same.
Evolution is nature's way of solving problems.
The main problem, of course, for a bacterium or any other organism, is how to survive long enough to reproduce. In the struggle for existence, genetically distinct individuals compete for limited resources. Those that do best produce more offspring and become the major genetic shareholders of the next generation. Random mutations and sexual reproduction shuffle genes to create offspring with new genetic combinations. And every generation, natural selection sifts through the competitors, eliminating combinations that don't work, and adapting organisms to their enviroranents.