An endless tale. Evolution itself can evolve—evidence has been discovered.

The fact that living organisms evolve in response to changes in their environment is not new; however, scientists have recently made a groundbreaking discovery: the process of evolution itself is also evolving, as reported by Live Science.

"Evolution of evolution" is a controversial concept, partly because it is extremely difficult to measure. Living organisms typically adapt to their surroundings; for instance, some bacteria rapidly develop resistance to antibiotics. But does the process itself change over time, and if so, what drives the evolution of evolution?

In a new study, biologists proposed that evolution may indeed improve over time. This process involves "fine-tuning" the population's response to environmental changes—provided that fluctuations in the environment are not too rapid.

According to evolutionary biologist Luis Zaman from the University of Michigan and the lead author of the study, he and his colleagues used a computer program to test the controversial theory that evolution can evolve.

In the computer model, virtual organisms lived in an environment where they could survive using one of two mutually exclusive strategies:

• in the first, organisms could eat blue berries to survive but died from red ones;
• in the other, red berries were nutritious while blue ones were toxic.

In simple terms, populations of organisms could evolve to consume only one type of berry. When researchers repeatedly altered the conditions in these virtual worlds by switching between edible berries, their life forms adapted more quickly to new circumstances over time. However, this did not happen when the environment changed too rapidly—populations could not evolve in just one generation. Meanwhile, over dozens or hundreds of generations, their adaptability increased and remained high.

According to Zaman, once a population reached a state of "evolvability," it seemed to remain unaffected by future evolution. The team believes that this evolution of evolution is actually driven by two patterns:

• a high mutation rate;
• an increase in the number of beneficial mutations over time.

It is suggested that a high mutation rate gives organisms a chance to adapt to new conditions since there is greater diversity among individuals that can survive and thrive. At the same time, a greater number of beneficial mutations overall enables organisms to adapt to conditions that their ancestors have already encountered.

It is worth noting that the biologists used simple virtual organisms—the equivalent of rapidly reproducing microbes. Now, Zaman and his colleagues believe that the same principles are likely to hold true for more complex life forms. The team acknowledges that they used an "unnatural research system," yet they believe that the results provide insight into how and why populations in nature evolve so consistently.