Question

Describe how the primary and secondary endosymbiosis relates to both the Alvaeolates and Chlorarachniophytes by including where the membrane originates and provide examples of which organisms may have been involved in each stage of symbiosis

Answer 1

Primary endosymbiosis is the process in which a eukaryote engulfs another living prokaryote. An organism may then use that organism to its advantage. If a eukaryotic cell engulfs a photosynthetic alga cell, the larger organism can then use the products of the alga and become an autotrophic organism.

Secondary endosymbiosis is when a living cell engulfs another eukaryote cell that has already undergone primary endosymbiosis. It has happened often enough that it has led to genetic diversity among the organisms on Earth. Though it undergoes the same process of primary endosymbiosis, the cell that becomes engulfed now becomes very dependent on the larger cell. Unlike primary endosymbiosis, the engulfed cell cannot leave the larger cell and return to its original state. The engulfed primary endosymbiosis cell now has a double phospholipid bilayer. The bilayer consists of its original outer membrane and the membrane of the cell it engulfed in primary endosymbiosis. This evidence of a phospholipid bilayer also encourages that both mitochondria and chloroplasts originated from endosymbiosis..