Symbiosis as a Source of Evolutionary Innovation: Speciation and Morphogenesis [Hardcover]

Lynn Margulis (Editor), Rene Fester (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 17, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0262132699 | ISBN-13: 978-0262132695 | Edition: First Edition

A departure from mainstream biology, the idea of symbiosis - as in the genetic and metabolic interactions of the bacterial communities that became the earliest eukaryotes and eventually evolved into plants and animals - has attracted the attention of a growing number of scientists.These original contributions by symbiosis biologists and evolutionary theorists address the adequacy of the prevailing neo-Darwinian concept of evolution in the light of growing evidence that hereditary symbiosis, supplemented by the gradual accumulation of heritable mutation, results in the origin of new species and morphological novelty. They include reports of current research on the evolutionary consequences of symbiosis, the protracted physical association between organisms of different species. Among the issues considered are individuality and evolution, microbial symbioses, animal­bacterial symbioses, and the importance of symbiosis in cell evolution, ecology, and morphogenesis.Lynn Margulis, Distinguished Professor of Botany at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is the modern originator of the symbiotic theory of cell evolution. Once considered heresy, her ideas are now part of the microbiological revolution. René Fester is a graduate student in the biological sciences at Northern Arizona University.Contributors: Peter Atsatt. Richard C. Back. David Bermudes. Paola Bonfante-Fasolo. René Fester. Lynda J. Goff. Anne-Marie Grenier. Ricardo Guerrero. Robert H. Haynes. Rosmarie Honegger. Gregory Hinkle. Kwang W. Jeon. Bryce Kendrick. Richard Law. David Lewis. Lynn Margulis. John Maynard Smith. Margaret J. McFall-Ngai. Paul Nardon. Kenneth H. Nealson. Kris Pirozynski. Peter W. Price. Mary Beth Saffo. Jan Sapp. Silvano Scannerini. Werner Schwemmler. Sorin Sonea. Toomas H. Tiivel. Robert K. Trench. Russell Vetter.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

These original contributions by symbiosis biologists and evolutionary theorists address the adequacy of the prevailing neo-Darwinian concept of evolution in the light of growing evidence that hereditary symbiosis, supplemented by the gradual accumulation of heritable mutation, results in the origin of new species and morphological novelty.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 470 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; First Edition edition (June 17, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262132699
• ISBN-13: 978-0262132695
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,365,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, received the 1999 National Medal of Science from President Bill Clinton. She has been a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences since 1983 and of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences since 1997. Author, editor, or coauthor of chapters in more than forty books, she has published or been profiled in many journals, magazines, and books, among them Natural History, Science, Nature, New England Watershed, Scientific American, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Firsts, and The Scientific 100. She has made numerous contributions to the primary scientific literature of microbial evolution and cell biology.

Margulis's theory of species evolution by symbiogenesis, put forth in Acquiring Genomes (co-authored with Dorion Sagan, 2002), describes how speciation does not occur by random mutation alone but rather by symbiotic d©tente. Behavioral, chemical, and other interactions often lead to integration among organisms, members of different taxa. In well-documented cases some mergers create new species. Intimacy, physical contact of strangers, becomes part of the engine of life's evolution that accelerates the process of change. Margulis works in the laboratory and field with many other scientists and students to show how specific ancient partnerships, in a given order over a billion years, generated the cells of the species we see with our unaided eyes.The fossil record, in fact, does not show Darwin's predicted gradual changes between closely related species but rather the "punctuated equilibrium" pattern described by Eldredge and Gould: a jump from one to a different species.

She has worked on the "revolution in evolution" since she was a graduate student. Over the past fifteen years, Margulis has cowritten several books with Dorion Sagan, among them What is Sex? (1997), What is Life? (1995), Mystery Dance: On the Evolution of Human Sexuality (1991), Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors (1986), and Origins of Sex:Three Billion Years of Genetic Recombination (1986).

Her work with K.V. Schwartz provides a consistent formal classification of all life on Earth and has lead to the third edition of Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth (1998). Their classification scheme was generated from scientific results of myriad colleagues and its logical-genealogical basis is summarized in her single-authored book Symbiosis in Cell Evolution: Microbial Communities in the Archean and Proterozoic Eons (second edition, 1993). The bacterial origins of both chloroplasts and mitochondria are now well established. Currently, with colleagues and students, she explores the possible origin of cilia from spirochetes.

Since the mid-1970s, Margulis has aided James E. Lovelock, FRS, in documenting his Gaia Theory, which posits that the Earth's surface interactions among living beings, rocks and soil, air and water have created a vast, self-regulating system. From the vantage of outer space the Earth looks like an amazing being; from the vantage of biochemistry it behaves in many ways like a giant organism.

Photo by Luis Rico