Talk:Symbiogenesis/Archive 1

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Csulli25.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled
One is led to a conclusion that the biomass of all eukaryotes is in actuality a single planetary species, with local adaptations; that our insistence on imposing characterizations and order on the microbiological world are folly.

symbiogenesis
Yes, the history of life on this planet does demonstrate that species is a somewhat arbitrary division of a continuum of organisms. However, the ability to recognise a species has some evolutionary usefulness; how else are we going to recognise poisonous plants or dangerous animals.

I hate to write (obviously)but this article needs an overview of the symbiogenesis of the proto-eucaryote and of the various eubacteria that originated both the mitochondria in modern eucaryotes and the chloroplasts in plants, algae, diatoms etc.

There also should be a review of the repeated endosymbioses that led to the various diatoms and dinoflagellates. -anon

Those things are dealt with in a separate article, endosymbiotic hypothesis. This article is extremely biased towards Margulis' point of view, which is extremely idiosyncratic, and more importantly ignores the bulk of the evidence. It's true that symbiogenesis is responsible for some of the main eukaryotic lineages, but this idea is hardly specific to Margulis. As such, I really can't see how the espousal of her theory can be made NPOV, and have replaced it with a brief summary of her opinion. I think this page would be better as a redirect. Josh

Hang on, don't give up on this article just yet! As written, it is a rather poor example of how to write NPOV and doesn't really discuss symbiogenesis, but the topic deserves a place in this encyclopedia. Friedgreenkillertomatoes 09:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the current contents of this article are more appropriate for a article that explains of the work of Margulis (in a rather biased manner) then Symbiogenesis. Dr v 06:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think someone is mis-citing Mereschkowsky here. The 1927 book "Symbionticism and the Origin of Species" was written by Ivan Emmanuael Wallin. Mereschkowsky's article was published in 1909 in Russian. The title can be translated as "The theory of two plasms as a foundation of symbiogenesis: new knowledge concerning the origins of organisms". If I wasn't connected via HughesNet (which won't let me login to wikipedia), I'd edit the page directly. -bhawthorne —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.19.14.20 (talk) 04:33, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

"Other than the two examples of mitochondria and chloroplasts, there is no clear evidence of other major traits or transitions that can be attributed to symbiogenesis." What about siphonophores? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.200.214.95 (talk) 07:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Regarding this sentence at the end of the first paragraph: "Today both chloroplasts and mitochondria are believed, by those who ascribe to the endosymbiotic theory, to have such an origin." From the first time I first heard of endosymbiosis in high school, through 4 years of biology classes in college, and continuing through the past ~4 years working on a phd in a lab that studies evolutionary theory, I have never met nor heard of anyone who did NOT "ascribe to the endosymbiotic theory" as it applies to chloroplasts and mitochondria. In my experience it's something that the scientific community accepts as true. (Obviously it's a question that can never be PROVEN as true, but I can't think of any such question with an explanatory theory as parsimonious as endosymbiosis is for the question of origins of mitochondria/chloroplasts.) My point here is that the sentence I quoted seems deliberately structured to suggest that this question is one of significant disagreement, with endosymbiosis just one among multiple competing explanations, each with its share of "believers." It's also possible that whoever wrote the sentence that way just did it to shoehorn in a link to "endosymbiotic theory," but either way I feel like the concept of endosymbiosis is already very hard to buy - a textbook "extraordinary claim" - when someone first hears of it, before understanding the body of evidence supporting it. The implication that some significant fraction of experts don't "believe" it either also implies that the evidence must not be extraordinary enough, so it's not worth trying to understand. It is. Sorry for making way too big a deal about that, I'm very tired and forcing myself when I was in high school to understand the evidence about mitochondrial origins was what caused me to accept that evolution wasn't just an alternative belief to creationism.., Spameroo (talk) 12:08, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Merge to Endosymbiotic theory
This concept introduced by Mereschkowsky itself has very narrow pespective. This hypothesis is absorbed with the origin of plants. In fact Mereschkowsky concluded in his 1905 paper (which is the actual origin of the hypothesis) that plants must be derived from animals, the notion of which is absurd to modern science. Anyway, the content of this page is merely a repetition, and dare I say, poorly simplified version of the page endosymbiotic theory. Chhandama (talk) 08:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
 * However, in the literature both terms are used, and my impression is that Symbiogenesis is more widely used today (Look at Google Search for instance - "Symbiogenesis" has 961 results since 2010, while "Endosymbiotic theory" has 719 results (not to be confused with Endosymbiotic), and often the discussion focuses on Lynn Marguli's SET theory + Lynn herself published in regards to the origin of life under the title of Symbiogenesis For instance she wrote:"A plethora of high-quality scientific studies of nucleated organisms, by contrast has unequivocally shown symbiogenesis to underlie the origins and stability of species and more inclusive taxa in members of the Eukary kingdoms" (P.108). In fact Lynn was a proponent of symbiogenesis. My impressions is that the term Symbiogenesis, has gained more traction in recent years, while ET was more widely discussed around the 80s, and refers to more specific processes. This paper outlines ET and elaborates further. This article is interesting, but unfortunately lacks cites. I collected some notable studies here, if you need more pointers. --prokaryotes (talk) 09:39, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Support move into Symbiogenesis - per above, and then a section should outline Margulis SET theory, which contributes to Symbiogenesis. Alternatively no merger, and instead improvements to SG & ET article, with respect to the described processes. --prokaryotes (talk) 09:48, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support merger - the google search data above are, I think, skewed by not including "endosymbiosis", which just now gets 238,000 results compared to 37,300 for "symbiogenesis". The former term, I think, would commonly be used for the state, and the latter for the origin of the state. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Unanimous decision is to merge, but with slight deviation from the proposal. I do agree to prokaryotes that symbiogenesis should be the main page. Simply because, apart from the google census, the most notable proponent of the theory Lynn Margulis uses the term symbiogenesis in her technical and popular literature as both the theory and the actual mechanism of evolution. (In reality I have not come across where she specifically uses 'endosymbiotic theory'). Chhandama (talk) 02:21, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

B.M. Kozo Polansky
I think the article as it is right now is not complete. At least the Russian B.M. Kozo Polansky should be mentioned to have expanded the ideas of Mereschkovski by combining more observations and linked the principle of natural selection to symbiogenesis. Is this correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Odyssloot (talk • contribs) 08:27, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right. Boris Kozo-Polyansky wrote (English version) Symbiogenesis: A New Principle of Evolution in 1924. Chhandama (talk) 10:41, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

New Editor
Hey everyone! My name is Caitlin, I am a third year student at the University of Western Ontario. I am planning on editing this page for an assignment this semester, but I have never really edited wikipedia before. I have some cool ideas, but I am still doing preliminary research and planning. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! I'm excited to help improve this page! Csulli25 (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I will post here the link to my sandbox so that everyone can see what I am currently working on for this page. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. Csulli25 (talk) 21:47, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

As it sounds as if you have seen fit to take over the editing of this page (as an assignment!?!) please: LookingGlass (talk) 15:11, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * remove the weasel wording e.g "It is thought that ..." and replace with specific references
 * add sections and references to the alternate theories (referred to elesewhere on wiki) e.g prokaryotes descended from eukaryotes; eukaryotes euubacteria archeabacteria and prokaryotes evolved together; etc.

p.s Pls respectfully ask your tutor/prof/whoever not to freeload on wikipedia. Wiki is not a sandpit for students' play - even if it does provide a sandpit! It is a community owned and developed resource deserving of respect as such. While imo more involvement of academia as editors of wiki is needed and to be applauded, wiki is nonetheless not a part of academia. Consequently each of its articles aspires to NPOV rather than the disemination of "current opinion". This puts it at variance with academic texts. Perhaps, as the contents of wiki are available under the Creative Commons License, it would appear more appropriate for your college to establish its own vehicle, a wiki, Moodle, etc, on which wikipedia or original texts could be freely used as assignments for students. This would avoid any well-meaning "vandalism" of wiki itself. Thanks.

Too specific - NPOV required
This article describes endosymbiosis as defined as a specific evolutionary theoory. However the term has a wider scope than this. See, for example, endosymbiont which aligns with the definition of endosymbiosis as, for instance, " A symbiotic association in which one or more organisms live inside another, such as bacteria in human intestines. The article needs to be rebalanced so as to introduce the term in its widest sense and proceed subsequently to detail more specific associations and definitions.  This would then reintegrate it with other "subordinate" wiki articles.  The article appears to have become an undergraduate thesis (an assignment) concerning the theory only and, while deserving credit, consequently needs the attention of an expert. LookingGlass (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I've edited the introduction to remove the primary confusions. I've removed the flag but have not gone through the rest of the article in any detail.  For instance I've not corrected the weasel words referred to above.  However, it appears to me the rest of the article serves as an expansion of the new intro.  Ran out of time to do more.  LookingGlass (talk) 19:32, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Link in the first paragraph
Hey team, it looks like the internal link in the first paragraph is creating a loop- despite the first sentence stating that symbiogenesis is not to be confused with Endosymbiosis, the internal link from Endosymbiosis is to a | redirect page that places the reader back at Symbiogenesis. I don't know enough about endosymbotic theory to assert whether the link is pointing to the wrong page or the first sentence should be rephrased, but I'm removing the internal link for now. It looks like this might be a remnant from the merge in 2014 between Endosymbiotic theory and Symbiogenesis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daemyth (talk • contribs) 19:47, 27 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Can someone defend keeping that "not to be confused with..." bit? I am removing it, but if someone can defend it, we can restore it, with more explanation.Michaplot (talk) 20:07, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You did the right thing. Symbiogenesis is literally synonymous with endosymbiosis. The error was introduced by LookingGlass in this edit. And I have added a proper hatnote. Chhandama (talk) 04:20, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

The terms are confusing, hence my wish to discriminate between them and avoid reader confusion down the line. There are three distinct but overlapping and related subjects that need to be set out and apart from one another:

Hope that helps. LookingGlass (talk) 13:52, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
 * 1 SYMBIOGENESIS, is an evolution term that relates to the cooperation between species in order to increase their survival.
 * 2 ENDOSYMBIOSIS, a symbiotic association in which one or more organisms live inside another, such as bacteria in human intestines.
 * 3 ENDOSYMBIOTIC THEORY, which postulates an evolutionary path for the eukaryote cell.


 * The link to 2, endosymbiosis now works, there's a separate article; but 1 and 3 are equated, and for practical purposes the "evolution term" of 1 refers to the evolutionary path theory of 3, so the equation is very nearly correct. Perhaps the first line or two of the article should, however, be clarified to show that the terms are not quite synonymous. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:19, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Anon performed an image-ectomy
An anonymous contributor performed an image-ectomy, apparently thinking an image was confusing and useless. I thought it was pretty clear, although I agree it could use a caption. Since they thought it was confusing, and I didn't, I disagree that it was obviously useless. Perhaps they could weigh in here and explain their concerns more fully? Geo Swan (talk) 19:24, 8 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi I'm the one who made the anonymous edit. I removed it because the figure has colors, labels, and steps with no legend. To the layman, it is not sufficient to understand symbiogenesis. There is also another figure right above it that does a much better job explaining the concept in a visual manner. Sure, the simpler image may not cover secondary and tertiary endosymbiosis, but the figure in question doesn't do a good job of it either. Even with the new caption, I think it should be removed. Shumpeim (talk) 05:05, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Readability of the introduction
The 78 word sentence on "evidence supporting symbiogenesis" (in the second introductory paragraph) is a bit difficult to read, due to its length. Although some people might frown on using dot-points in the introduction, doing so might improve the readability of this sentence. --Rwilkin (talk) 11:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Origins of this Theory
I believe the current article doesn't give proper credit to the origins of this theory.

A resource such as

http://www.scienceforthepublic.org/they-didnt-believe-it/symbiogenesis

suggests that the idea of symbiogenesis began earlier, with the idea that the chloroplasts in plant cells were earlier an independent life form. As such, this article needs to be revised to support a NPOV. I'll start be removing the word "first" which can be a bias term. Ryoung 122 06:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)