Symbiotic planet
Subtitle: a new look at evolution
By: Lynn Margulis.
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: Science masters
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 147
Subjects: Symbiosis; Evolution (Biology); Symbiogenesis
Description: Although Charles Darwin's theory of evolution laid the foundations of modern biology, it did not tell the whole story. Most remarkably, The Origin of Species said very little about, of all things, the origins of species. Darwin and his modern successors have shown very convincingly how inherited variations are naturally selected, but they leave unanswered how variant organisms come to be in the first place.

In Symbiotic Planet, renowned scientist Lynn Margulis shows that symbiosis, which simply means members of different species living in physical contact with each other, is crucial to the origins of evolutionary novelty. Ranging from bacteria, the smallest kinds of life, to the largest - the living Earth itself - Margulis explains the symbiotic origins of many of evolution's most important innovations.

Along the way, Margulis describes her initiation into the world of science and the early steps in the present revolution in evolutionary biology; the importance of species classification for how we think about the living world; and the way "academic apartheid" can block scientific advancement.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-136) and index.