The SNAP hypothesis: Chromosomal rearrangements could emerge from positive Selection during Niche Adaptation.
The relative linear order of most genes on bacterial chromosomes is not conserved over evolutionary timescales.One explanation is that selection is weak, allowing recombination to randomize gene order by genetic drift.However, most chromosomal rearrangements are deleterious to fitness.In contrast, we propose the hypothesis that rearrangements in ge