Tal­mu­dic Ques­tion #210

The en­dosym­bio­sis of a cyanobac­terium led to the for­ma­tion of the pho­to­syn­thetic or­gan­elle, the chloro­plast. Along evo­lu­tion­ary his­tory this or­ganelle proved quite plas­tic; there are many non-pho­to­syn­thetic vari­ants with very dif­fer­ent func­tions, e.g., chro­mo­plasts, amylo­plasts, api­coplasts. Thus, the name plas­tid to re­fer to the group. In con­trast, the mito­chon­dri­on, the other or­ganelle de­rived from en­dosym­bio­sis, does not dis­play the same de­gree of plas­tic­ity. Why (in a teleo­nomic sense) such dif­fer­ent evo­lu­tion­ary out­comes?

 

 

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