[codeflo]

I was replying specifically to "since bananas are clones, there's nothing for the selection pressure to act on." That's not correct reasoning, since the DNA in plant clones can mutate, and thus, plant clones are susceptible to selection pressure.

[anthonyb]

In theory, yes - but mutation rates of clones are going to be very, very low. Bananas are also grown from a central stock to control disease, so even if there were a mutation, all the bananas are going to mutate identically.

Bacteria reproduce in all sorts of bizarre ways, including swapping DNA from other bacteria, editing their DNA, etc., so it's not really related.

[codeflo]

I think we can all agree that what's happening with bananas is not a healthy state of affairs. I was just trying to clarify that asexual reproduction doesn't exclude natural selection, and was using bacteria as an (admittedly not perfect) analogy.

I guess if you had simply said that there's virtually no selection pressure, you wouldn't have triggered my nitpick reaction. :)