Why are Lactic Acid Bacteria so prevalent if lactic acid fermentation is so energetically inefficient?
On the evolutionary ladder, lactic acid fermentation evolved before respiration. The use of oxygen was not so crucial in the early atmosphere which was high in hydrocarbons. As plants evolved and filled the atmosphere with their waste product (oxygen), bacteria had to evolve into respiring organisms, using oxygen (which is a more efficient way of producing energy.) It would seem more likely that they are still also capable of lactic acid fermentation as natural selection produces a redundancy of systems. Rather than disposing of older systems in organisms when a new more efficient genetic form of expression is found, the DNA tends to retain the old information also (researchers have found much gene redundancy while working out genetic sequences.
Related Questions
- Alcohol and lactic acid fermentation- where does it take place, reactants, products, amount of ATP produced?
- Why are Lactic Acid Bacteria so prevalent if lactic acid fermentation is so energetically inefficient?
- How are lactic acid fermentation and alcoholic fermentation similar? How are they different?
