E. coli bacteria, which live in human intestines, are shaped like tiny, straight sausages. they are

dna damages cause changes in the structure of the genetic material and prevents the replication mechanism from functioning and performing properly. dna damage and mutation have different biological consequences. while most dna damages can undergo dna repair, such repair is not 100% efficient.

genetic variation can be caused by mutation (which can create entirely new alleles in a population), random mating, random fertilization, and recombination between homologous chromosomes during meiosis (which reshuffles alleles within an organism's offspring).