Evidence for pattern development:engulfing adds function (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, December 02, 2014, 02:16 (3436 days ago) @ David Turell

We now understand that mitochondria and chloroplasts were engulfed from independent organisms to add function. Here is a review of that set of discoveries, and it makes a pattern of evolutionary development:-http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41511/title/The-Cellular-Revolution/- "It was one of the first fundamental scientific problems to be addressed using molecular phylogenetics. The outcome marked a turning point in our understanding of cellular evolution.-"The genetic material within the mitochondria and chloroplasts of present-day organisms was, even with 1970s-style technologies, demonstrably bacterial, highly distinct from that residing in the cell nucleus. Within a decade the molecular evidence for endosymbiosis was unassailable. What remained, what still remains, is to iron out the details.-"Oxygenic photosynthesis evolved in the ancestors of aquatic cyanobacteria, entered the eukaryotic domain, and led to the very first chloroplast-bearing alga, paving the way for the colonization of land and the greening of planet Earth. A more recent and unexpected twist is the realization that cyanobacterium-derived chloroplasts have been passed from eukaryote to eukaryote: the ability to harness the sun's energy is a precious commodity. Many ecologically significant algae—think planktonic diatoms and red tide-forming dinoflagellates—are in fact the cellular equivalent of Russian nesting dolls: cells within cells within cells whose nested sets of genomes reveal who ate whom in the distant and not-so-distant past."