Receive a comprehensive roundup of the top opinions of the week by signing up for our Voices Dispatches email. Stay updated and engaged with our free weekly Voices newsletter. For the first time in at least a billion years, two lifeforms have merged to form a single organism through a process called primary endosymbiosis. This evolutionary event has only occurred twice in the history of the Earth. The first time resulted in the emergence of mitochondria, which gave rise to all complex life. The second time saw the development of plants.
An international team of scientists has observed this process happening between a species of algae and a bacterium commonly found in the ocean. Tyler Coale, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, led one of two recent studies that uncovered this phenomenon. The algae engulfs the bacterium, providing it with nutrients, energy, and protection in exchange for new functions, such as the ability to fix nitrogen from the air. The bacterium becomes an organelle within the algae, essential for its functioning.
The researchers believe that this discovery offers new insights into evolution and has the potential to revolutionize agriculture. Dr. Coale suggested that this system could provide a new perspective on nitrogen fixation, with the potential to be engineered into crop plants. The research papers were published in the scientific journals Science and Cell, with scientists from institutions such as MIT, the University of California, San Francisco
