Download Dusting Off an Ancient Book

page 70
Lab Times
Book Review
5-2010
Book review: Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution
Dusting Off an Ancient Book
In the 1920s, the Russian biologist Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyansky recognised symbiogenesis – the merging of two
separate organisms to form a single new organism – as an important evolutionary tool. 86 years after the publication
of his historic 1924 opus, Symbiogenesis, an English translation is available.
T
he US biologist Lynn Margulis is well
known for her endosymbiotic theory,
proposed at the end of the 1960s. In
sum, it postulates that mitochondria and
plastids in eukaryotes originate from bacterial endosymbionts. Some years later, in
1975, she and Peter Raven, a botanist and
also a supporter of this theory, were invited to a panel session in Leningrad about the
origins of chloroplasts, organised by the Armenian-Russian botanist Armen Takhtajan.
It was then, Margulis and Raven plausibly
assert, that they heard about Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyansky for the first time.
Both also claimed that it was then when
they learned of the existence of one of the
books written by Kozo-Polyansky half a century before, Symbiogenesis. In that meeting,
Takhtajan translated small fragments of it,
so they were aware of Kozo-Polyansky’s ideas, similar to theirs but published even before they were born. The complete English
translation of that text has now been published by Harvard University Press and edited by Margulis and Victor Fet, a Russian
zoologist and poet, who also translated for
this edition.
The legacy of Kozo-Polyansky
Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyansky was
born in 1890 and became an important botanist in his native Russia. He was a Darwinist and a supporter of symbiogenesis, a con-
The covers of Kozo-Polyansky’s legendary
opus yesterday (left) and today.
cept proposed by his fellow Russian, biologist Konstantin Mereschkowski, in the first
decade of the twentieth century. The term
“symbiogenesis” refers to the evolutionary
origin of new organisms as a result of symbiotic association between two previously
independent living beings. Kozo-Polyansky
defended this view and one of the merits
of his work, reflected in this book, is the
large amount of bibliographical information he collected from scientific literature
to support it.
He described a great number of examples where symbiosis is observed, including consortia of bacteria to multicellular organisms, such as lichens, which are associations of fungus with green algae or cyanobacterial photobionts. He linked symbiogenesis with natural selection and proposed that the origin of some of the organelles of cells were
the result of these
phenomena.
Historically
relevant
Kozo-Polyansky in later life
The book can
get very descriptive
and it is not easy
to follow almost
one hundred pages of examples. But
it is not only about
that; what is there
is also historically
relevant. Kozo-Pol-
yansky mentioned, for example, a debate
involving prokaryotes, then called by different names and not yet considered cells.
He cited Arthur Meyer, a prominent German biologist, who considered it, “hard to
imagine that the smallest bacteria can be
made of molecules”. Meyer thought that
they were very small and formed by “vitules”, which were supposed to be made of
muons and not electrons.
It is an amazing experience to be immersed in the cutting edge biological
thought of more than a century ago.
The English translation does not stand
alone in this edition, which also includes
important sections that make it not only historically valuable, but also provide updated
information about the topic. We find editors’ commentaries throughout the book
that have their own references, offering an
overview of the current status of research in
most of the cases mentioned. A bonus is the
modern illustrations included: mainly photos and micrographs.
Some gripes remain
Even if The New Principle of Biology: An
Essay on the Theory of Symbiogenesis (which
is the literal translation of the Russian title) is an important work for the history
and philosophy of science, there remain
some gripes. Given its value as a reference
for people interested in the topic, it’s inappropriate that in the introductory chapters
(written by collaborators) it is implied that
symbiogenesis explains the origin of eukaryotes. This is, at the very least, still debatable; and it is not the same as using it for
explaining the origin of mitochondria and
plastids, proven and accepted. Let’s avoid
confusion and recognise the importance of
symbiogenesis, but not give it a larger role
in evolution than what is currently known
Alejandra Manjarrez
and proved.
Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyansky: Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution (edited by Victor Fet and Lynn Margulis). Harvard
University Press, 2010. 240 pages, €34.99.