I've got a quick question for the friendly microbiologists of Mastodon.

It's my understanding that it's common for some environmental change to wipe out 90+% of a bacterial colony, only to have the survivors quickly multiply back to their original numbers, this time with a mutation that grants resistance to whatever the threat was.

Is there a name for this phenomenon (not "gene fixation," but the die back and recovery)? Are there canonical papers about it?

EDIT: I think "population bottleneck" is the best way to describe what I mean, though I got a few other very good suggestions for related terms.

Thanks everyone! You guys are the best. ❤️

#microbiology #bacteria