WP2: Literature Review

Endosymbiosis

Ralph Jimenez
Writing 2 / Julie Johnson
March 7, 2021
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WP2: Endosymbiosis

Ever since French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck outlined his first theory of evolution

in the early 1800s, the scientific community has had one question that has persisted even up to

today’s modern science; Where did we come from? Many scientists made many important

contributions to the study of the origin of our species. One of the most important theories was the

theory of evolution that was introduced by Charles Darwin. However, more recently, there is a

more specific theory that explains the origins of our complex cells: Endosymbiosis. Beginning in

the early 1900s, some scientists started to develop the idea that complex eukaryotic cells were a

result of the combination of different simpler prokaryotic cells in a process called symbiogenesis.

This theory of our origin didn’t gain traction until extensive research was done in the 1960’s

when Lynn Margulis led the way in developing the theory and assimilating it into Darwin’s

evolutionary theory. Since then, the theory has gotten more and more evidence and is now being

taught in our education systems today. Even though this theory has been getting more and more

recognition, it may still be difficult for a random person to understand due to lack of key terms

and concepts. These concepts are really understood by people who are studying science and who

are involved in the scientific community. There are many different sources of information for

this topic alone, ranging from scholarly articles to educational videos. However, to fully

understand what each source is bringing to the discussion, it is important to carefully examine

how each source is being presented and to answer this question Karen Rosenberg asks in her

essay “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources”: “When the writer sat down to

write your assigned reading, to whom was he or

she implicitly talking to?”.​1

1
​Rosenberg, Karen, “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources”, Writing Spaces: Readings on
Writing Vol. 2 (2011)
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This literature review analyzes peer reviewed articles and non academic sources to examine how

the topic of endosymbiosis can be made accessible to the general public

In 2015, Maureen O’Malley aimed to educate scientific readers by writing an extensive

paper on Endosymbiosis. Titled “Endosymbiosis and Its Implications for Evolutionary Theory,”

O’Malley analyzes historical claims from different scientists and how each fits in Darwin’s

theory of evolution.​2​ O’Malley dedicates a bulk of her article to the “Margulis Era” of the theory

and thoroughly explains Lynn Margulis’ ideas of the basis of endosymbiosis and how the theory

fits in with the ideas of Darwin’s and other evolutionary biologists. This article does an excellent

job in laying out the history of the theory of endosymbiosis. Although the article provides a good

source of the theory’s history, it lacks approachability for the audience. The article is less

approachable because of the discipline O’Malley writes in. Because O’Malley is writing for a

Scientific Journal, she safely assumes that her intended audience already has knowledge about

simple biological processes. However, the problem arises when someone with no scientific

background is interested in our origin as O’Malley doesn’t inherently explain key concepts and

the actual process of endosymbiosis.

This problem of academic disconnect is lessened as Abdelaziz Heddi and Anna

Zaidman-Rémy explain their findings of a research study they conducted on endosymbiosis in a

French biology journal. In their research paper, “Endosymbiosis as a source of immune

innovation,” they outline their experiment using fruit flies and other organisms to try and outline

the logistics of the process of endosymbiosis. The paper presents the experiment and their

findings with detailed analysis about the results they observed.​3​ As opposed to O’Malley’s
2
O’Malley, Maureen A. "Endosymbiosis and Its Implications for Evolutionary Theory." Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the UnitedStates of America 112, no. 33 (2015): 10270-0277. JSTOR
3
​Heddi, Abdelaziz, and Anna Zaidman-Rémy. “Endosymbiosis as a Source of Immune Innovation.” ​Comptes
Rendus Biologies​, Published by Elsevier, 2018,
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069118300507?via%3Dihub#aep-article-footnote-id1.
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article, this article does a better job of explaining what endosymbiosis actually is. This paper also

incorporates many examples to better explain any key terms and concepts; “It can be terrestrial

(e.g:lichens, plant mycorrhiza and rhizobia, microbiota of vertebrates and invertebrates).”

Although this paper is still in a scientific discipline, Heddi and Zaidman-Remy make the article

more comprehensible by adding explanations and examples. Unlike O’Malley’s paper, this

article serves to help the readers look at a detailed research paper and still know what is going on

and what the authors are trying to say. This research paper shows how slight background

information helps make the complicated topic of endosymbiosis simpler for more people.

Endosymbiosis has also started to become a topic in more accessible articles. In 2014, Ed

Yong wrote an insightful article for ​National Geographic​ about the theory of endosymbiosis

titled “The Greatest Merger In The History Of Life On Earth.” Yong is an award winning

science writer with publications throughout many different journals and magazines. The article

uses larger scale examples that narrow down to eventually reach the overarching idea of

endosymbiosis.​4​ Just like the research paper, Yong clearly establishes key terms and ideas

without assuming any prior knowledge from the audience. However, because of the more

flexible rhetorical situation of a National Geographic article, Yong is able to use more of a laid

back tone to make the topic more interesting to the reader. He uses phrases like “Why did the

prokaryotes remain as simple cells for so damn long?” to make his writing more inviting. This

article serves a good introduction to the topic of endosymbiosis and does a good job in enticing

readers into learning more whether it be from his full article or other educational resources.

However, this article still falls under a certain niche: the active ​National Geographic​ audience.

4
​Ed Yong, “The Greatest Merger In The History Of Life On Earth”, National Geographic, February 10,2014,
This is a shorter version of another article also written by Ed Yong.
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As scientists learn more and more about the endosymbiosis, education systems have

started to implement the idea into their curriculum. This has led to many resources other than

peer reviewed articles to educate students. One of these types of resources are online websites

like Libre Texts. This website is meant to give supplemental lessons to students to help them

throughout their courses. Each entry is made by contributions of educators in the field. On this

website, there is a section written by Gary Kaiser about endosymbiosis.​5​ Kaiser is a Professor of

Microbiology at the Community College of Baltimore. Because of this, he is knowledgeable and

his content has credibility. Since it was written in a learning format, the information is presented

to be like a lesson for students to study and learn. Compared to the other sources, this text is very

short and concise. This lesson also incorporates figures related to content. This adds helpful

visual aids to further strengthen the ideas being taught. The content only focuses on the essentials

of the concepts and a brief history. As a learning resource, this source also includes practice

problems at the end to help the audience practice the material. This source is a great way for

students to learn about the theory or to help further progress their knowledge of it.

The theory of endosymbiosis has also reached one of the most accessible resources:

YouTube. As the biggest source of online videos, YouTube has many different types of

channels, but one credible source is the TED organization. TED uses various educators that are

qualified for the subject matter at hand. They have a large following on Youtube and publish

many different types of educational videos on different topics. In 2015, TED-Ed published the

video “How we think complex cells evolved.”​6​ The video itself is an animation video that

outlines the simpler concepts of endosymbiosis. The video also does a good job in explaining the

various key terms clearly so that the audience isn’t confused with what is being said. Similar to

5
​Gary Kaiser, “The Endosymbiotic Theory”, in Biology Libre Texts, Contributed January 3, 2021, 7.8
6
Adam Jacobson, “How we think complex cells evolved”, Ted-ed, Published on February 17,2015, Youtube video
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the lesson from Libre Texts, the video uses animated cartoons throughout that accompanies the

concepts with a visual aid. The animation serves to enhance the learning effect on the audience

as it helps the viewer see what is actually going on. In contrast to the peer-reviewed articles, this

video is less dense and only covers surface level understanding on endosymbiosis. This makes

the content easier for a general audience to understand as maybe an introduction to the topic

rather than a further analysis like the article was. Jacobson uses simple words like “blob” instead

of more specific scientific terms to make the information less intimidating. This video serves to

close the gap between the knowledge scientific community compared to the common audience.

This ultimately makes the topic of endosymbiosis easy enough for any curious person to

understand regardless of any background education.

As scientists gain more and more information about endosymbiosis, the idea will start to

be incorporated into all the different levels of education. In contrast to the complicated structure

of peer-reviewed articles with complex topics like Maureen O’Malley’s paper, the concepts will

start to become more prevalent in different disciplines like common education and non-academic

sources like the TED-ed Youtube channel. The explanation of our origin as a complex species

will no longer be knowledge that takes a PhD to understand but one that is answered with just

one Google search.

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Bibliography

Heddi, Abdelaziz, and Anna Zaidman-Rémy. “Endosymbiosis as a Source of Immune

Innovation.” Comptes Rendus Biologies, Published by Elsevier, 2018,
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069118300507?via%3Dihub#aep-article
-footnote-id1

Jacobson, Adam “How we think complex cells evolved”, Ted-ed, Published on February
17, 2015, Youtube video, ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i7kAt97XYU

Kaiser, Gary “The Endosymbiotic Theory”, in ​Biology Libre Texts,​ Contributed January 3,
2021, 7.8
https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Microbiology/Book%3A_Microbiology_(Kaiser)/
Unit_4%3A_Eukaryotic_Microorganisms_and_Viruses/07%3A_The_Eukaryotic_Cell/7.
8%3A_The_Endosymbiotic_Theory

O’Malley, Maureen A. "Endosymbiosis and Its Implications for Evolutionary Theory."

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the UnitedStates of America 112,
no. 33 (2015): 10270-0277. JSTOR

Rosenberg, Karen, “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources”, Writing
Spaces: Readings on Writing Vol. 2 (2011)

Yong, Ed “The Greatest Merger In The History Of Life On Earth”, ​National Geographic,​
February 10,2014,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-greatest-merger-in-the-history-of
-life-on-earth