Bacteria
As we move from a purely medical view of microbes to an understanding of them as our ancestors, as planetary elders, our emotions also change, from fear and loathing to respect and awe. Bacteria invented fermentation, the wheel in the form of the proton rotary motor, sulfur breathing, photosynthesis, and nitrogen fixation, long before our evolution. They are not only highly social beings, but behave as a sort of worldwide decentralized democracy. Cells basically remain separate, but can connect and trade genes with organisms of even exceedingly different backgrounds. Realizing that human individuals also remain basically separate but can connect and trade knowledge with very different others may be taking a step toward the ancient wisdom of the microcosm. -Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbian Ancestors[1]
For the first billion (out of a total 3.8 billion) years of life on Earth, all life was bacteria.[2] Bacteria are prokaryotic, meaning their cells do not have a distinct nucleus with a membrane. They reproduce uniparentally (from just one parent), when a cell divides into two, or when a small bud leaves the cell and eventually becomes the size of its parent.[3]
Bacteria have played a number of beneficial roles for other life-forms. They invented photosynthesis. They are crucial for humans' digestive systems, and for soil maintenance in forests and on farms. Many antibiotics come from bacteria. Biologists Lynn Margulis and Mark Chapman argue, "Life on Earth would die out faster if organisms in the Superkingdom Prokarya [Bacteria] became extinct than if any of the other life-forms disappeared."[4]
Bacteria trade genes with each other through a process known as "horizontal" or "lateral transfer." The swapping of genes has allowed bacteria to survive in a variety of extreme climates for billions of years. Examining gene transfer, Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan stress that bacteria function as "a sort of worldwide decentralized democracy."[5] Margulis and Sagan advocate a global, environmentally-aware, free federation inspired by the global decentralized networks effectively formed by bacteria. Graham Purchase comments, "This vision has much in common with that of many prominent 19th century anarchist thinkers, notably Elisee Reclus and Peter Kropotkin."[6]
A billion years after bacteria first appeared on Earth, bacteria symbiotically evolved into the first eukaryotic cells, which have a distinct membrane surrounded by a nucleus.[7]
- ↑ Quoted in Graham Purchase, Anarchism & Environmental Survival (Tucson: See Sharp Press, 1994), 20.
- ↑ Ernst Mayr, what evolution is (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002), 48.
- ↑ Lynn Margulis and Mark Chapman, Kingdoms & Domains: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth (Academic Press, 2009), 47.
- ↑ Margulis and Chapman, Kingdoms & Domains, 41, 46.
- ↑ Purchase, Anarchism & Environmental Survival, 20.
- ↑ Purchase, Anarchism & Environmental Survival, 20.
- ↑ Mayr, what evolution is, 48.
