Abstract

The potential implications of an extended generational overlap in the context of the biological evolution of our planet are discussed. A special emphasis is made on the replication patterns exhibited by contemporary bacteria considered as a feasible prototype of the first forms of life in our planet. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that the existence of a large number of overlapping generations could act as an important source of individual variability for those ancestral species, impacting the way that well-established processes like natural selection and biological evolution operate in nature, a principle that, probably, could also be applied to the prebiotic era.