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459-468
- Zusammenfsg.
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Endosymbiosis led to cellular mergers in which at least the host cell acquired additional merits, and allowed new ecological niches to be settled successfully. For example, a major part of eukaryotes learned to exploit the energy of light by engulfing a phototrophic cyanobacteria-like cell, which was reduced to an organelle, the plastid. In the early days of eukaryotes different strategies were used to evolve plastids in primary and secondary endosymbiosis. More recently one group of eukaryotes, the dinoflagellates, invented another plastid-engulfing trick (tertiary endosymbiosis). This clear picture of the evolution of phototrophic eukaryotes became questionable by the finding that some heterotrophs express genes of cyanobacterial origin, possible relics of their history. Thus more eukaryotes than once thought may have a plastid history and evolved "back" to heterotrophy by plastid miniaturization or real plastid losses.
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