Domains of Life; Prokaryotic vs. Eukaryotic Cells

ID #1005

One of the questions on our homework stated that horizontal gene transfer increases the genetic diversity among species, does that imply that vertical gene trasfer reduces it?

Any time an organism's genome changes, even by a single base, the genetic diversity of that entire species has increased. So vertical evolution, also called vertical descent, is just as powerful a force in evolution as horizontal gene transfer. They're just different means to achieve the same end -- diversity.

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