Baedke 2020 J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol

Baedke J, Fábregas-Tejeda A, Nieves Delgado A (2020) The holobiont concept before Margulis. https://doi.org/10.1002/jez.b.22931

» J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol 334:149-55. PMID: 32039567 Open Access

Baedke J, Fabregas-Tejeda A, Nieves Delgado A (2020) J Exp Zool B Mol Dev Evol

Abstract: In recent years, Lynn Margulis has been credited in various articles as the person who introduced the concept of holobiont into biology in the early 1990s. Today, the origin of evolutionary studies on holobionts is closely linked to her name. However, Margulis was not the first person to use this concept in its current context. That honor goes to the German theoretical biologist Adolf Meyer-Abich, who introduced the holobiont concept nearly 50 years before her (in 1943). Although nearly completely forgotten today, in the 1940-60s he developed a comprehensive theory of evolutionary change through "holobiosis." It had a surprisingly modern outlook, as it not only addressed tenets of today's evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), like the origin of form and production of variation, but also anticipated key elements of Margulis' later endosymbiotic theory. As the holobiont concept has become an important guiding concept for organizing research, labeling conferences, and publishing articles on host-microbiota collectives and hologenomes, the field should become aware of the independent origin of this concept in the context of holistic biology of the 1940s.

• Bioblast editor: Gnaiger E

Selected quotes

“Holobiont” is a concept that has been an attractor for several ideas, and researchers have independently converged on this word to describe the integrated composite organism composed of microbial and host eukaryotic species.

Today, “holobiont” usually refers to a close association between different individuals, usually host-microbiota symbioses, that together form anatomical, physiological, immunological or evolutionary units.

.. autogenic hypothesis or direct filiation theory. It argued that mitochondrial evolution and the establishment of pro-eukaryotic cells was made possible through the slow process of invagination of the prokaryote cell membrane.

Margulis' evolutionary endosymbiotic theory .. some central arguments remained unchanged

Symbiogenesis provides a theory of the origins of new phylogenetic forms and biological innovations, like new tissues, organs, and physiologies.
The fusion of genomes is the central mechanism of endosymbiosis.
The theory of endosymbiosis opposes the neo-Darwinian view that evolution occurs through the accumulation and selection of mutational changes to the nuclear genome.

Meyer-Abich's theory anticipated many of today's most central research questions about holobionts .. This includes the question how their components assemble, how they interact, how holobionts evolve, and what role they might play in speciation and macroevolution.

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