They placed the molecules in what they called ‘chemical soup’ and studied how these molecules responded to changes when new chemicals were added.

As the different molecules developed and adapted in response to the different conditions, the scientists from the University of Groningen were able to monitor ‘new species’ emerging.

These new species then responded in their own unique way and developed into further new species, and the process continued.

Each time they ‘evolved’, the molecules took on features that made it easier to find and use chemical building blocks, which the researchers described as the molecules’ ‘food.’

These building blocks were needed for the molecules to grow and develop, so by ‘evolving’ in a certain way, they were able to obtain this ‘food’ faster and more efficiently, to grow more effectively.

At the most basic level, this system reflects the natural world, where organisms diversify to make the most of the available resources.

Professor Ott told MailOnline: “You start with one type of replicator that prefers one of the two building blocks and through a process of mutation and selection a second type emerges.

“This is the first example where a new replicator “species” branches off from a ancestral “species”. It shows that the tendency to diversify, which is commonplace in life, finds its roots in non-living chemical systems.”

The researchers wrote: “As diversification into sets takes place within weeks, and can be investigated at the molecular level, this work opens up new opportunities for experimentally investigating the process through which species arise both in real-time and with enhanced detail.’

In their ‘chemical soup’, the building blocks can react with each other by making and breaking bonds, which can then give rise to more complicated molecules.

Previous studies by the group showed how a similar molecular mix gave rise to an increasingly complex set of molecules.

A video from Professor Otto’s lab explains that the building blocks can independently form ringed molecules.

As the basic molecules formed, they reacted with oxygen in the air to form disulphide bridges.

The mix gave rise first to chains of two and three molecules, before shifting to rings of six and eight molecules after a week.

This could then stack together and form long threads.

When the experiment was run again, adding some of the rings to the batch dramatically reduced the time it took to form more of the rings.

While stirring the solution caused the molecular threads to break, resetting all the ‘evolution’, they were able to reform relatively quickly, from both ends.

In the current experiment, Professor Otto’s group were able to observe that the two sets of replicators emerged from the same basic chemical mix, and synthetically ‘evolved’ to use the same building blocks in slightly different ways – almost like a biological species evolving to occupy an ecological niche.

Scientists tracked new ‘species’ of self-replicating molecules emerge from a stock of two chemical building blocks.

The molecules could be split into two distinct types, which competed for the same ‘food’ but in slightly different ways.

The group tracked the process in real time, monitoring the new ‘species’ of molecules emerging from the stock.

At the most basic level, this artificial system reflects the natural world, where organisms diversify to make the most of the available resources, occupying environmental niches.

Professor Otto’s group added that the chemical model forms a much simpler model of biological evolution, which “opens up new possibilities to study experimentally the fundamentals behind the formation of biological species.”

“These results mark an important step towards achieving Darwinian evolution with a system of fully synthetic molecules and synthesis of life.”