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WCharles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, the Industrial Revolution and British colonialism took off. Charles Dickens published Hard Times five years ago; Queen Victoria nominally ruled one-fifth of the world’s population. Darwin, writes science writer Rowan Hooper, developed his theory of evolution to deliver what he felt his audience wanted to hear: “The story of nature as a competitive battle”. Natural selection began in a world that was “colonial, capitalist, patriarchal and dominated by elites” – with Darwin’s central message, described disrespectfully by the philosopher Herbert Spencer as “survival of the fittest”, chronologically.
Hooper loves Darwin – his account of a visit to Darwin’s Kent Down House shows respect (“it’s a case of pseudo-religion”). But he feels that Darwinism and its association with genetics in the so-called “modern synthesis” has placed undue emphasis on competition in nature and reduced the roles of cooperation and cooperation. By correcting that imbalance, Unity isn’t just trying to make evolution fun and palatable; rather, it is a correction deeply informed by what we have learned from Darwin about how nature works. Written with great charm and passion, and full of interesting facts, it also addresses the wonders of nature and the value and urgency of preserving them.
It is easy to see the competitive side of nature: a lion stalking a deer, a bird of prey rushing to kill. But the photogenic animal world is not really a representative source for the natural historian. Hooper shows that we often find a very different story between soft, thin and perishable things: molds, parasites, fungi. And algae, which look like plants but are actually a combination of fungi and algae. Each provides what the other needs: algae can photosynthesize, producing carbohydrates that the fungus eats, while fungi hide and propagate the algae that gather light. The relationship is symbiotic: each organism depends on the other and grows and evolves together. Sometimes the lichen group is combined with other friends: cyanobacteria (photosynthetic bacteria) or yeast. It’s a very beneficial partnership, which allows algae to thrive everywhere, from rainforests to tundra and deserts.
Or take limestone. Many of these aquatic organisms form the group of plants but are associated with animals (cnidarians, from the same family as sea anemones and jellyfish) and algae that live in their stomachs. Algae photosynthesize by using sunlight while the host provides nutrients and oxygen to their hosts. (Some deep-sea corals, which grow in the dark, contain bacteria instead.) Darwin published a book on coral reefs in 1842 after seeing them on the Beagle voyage, explaining how their limestone shells formed entire islands. But he did not know that they were symbionts.
Many land plants depend on these fungi, especially fungi called mycorrhizae which provide essential nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Without these associations there would not be forests and forests that cover the land, but mattresses and bodies of pathogens. The orchid is the archetypal plant symbiont – individual plants are connected through an underground network that can send sugars to their seedlings.
This is not surprising, as we first thought: symbiosis is the environment of many organisms. Beetles and termites grow nutritious gardens in their nests. And the importance of the bacteria that live in and on our bodies – our microbiome – is becoming increasingly apparent. Antibiotics that solve them leave us with digestive problems, while other bacterial infections and even depression can be treated with stool transplants, which sounds dangerous but is no less than the restoration of our agents.
Symbiosis has caused evolution since its early days. The chloroplasts responsible for photosynthesis in plant cells were non-living cyanobacteria. So were the mitochondria that produce energy in our cells. This type of stable combination (endosymbiosis) of single-celled organisms was first proposed in the 1960s by biologist Lynn Margulis, who said that Darwin’s “red in too and claw” theory of evolution was “absurd”. He wrote: “Now we think of ourselves as human beings made of cells.” He said, this integration can lead to the progress of evolution not just a little, but in a big way.
Margulis’s endosymbiosis theory is now widely accepted, but it was initially met with skepticism and ridicule. Sexism played a role there, but there is a point to be made on academic biology’s resistance to the notions of co-evolution – or the determination to reject them as mere ‘selfish genetics’. Margulis said that skepticism about symbiosis was a rejection of “feminism”, but we cannot fail to notice that the emphasis on the connection of nature often comes from women, whether it is Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring or the “wood wide web” of forest scientist Suzanne Simard for the Power2018 History.
This interdependence is critical to the health of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, the “whitening” of coral reefs due to ocean warming, for example, occurs because symbiotic algae cannot tolerate warmer water. Without them, reefs will disappear, and reefs have already halved since the middle of the 20th century. But, as Hooper explains, symbiosis is what causes parasitism if one reverses the arrangement. He warns, however, that ultimately the language of competition and cooperation is anthropomorphic and tends to place a moral judgment on the works of nature.
My Togetherness review now has a side note of “Wow!” I didn’t know that the feel-good neurotransmitter serotonin is largely produced by our gut bacteria. Some ants produce an antiseptic that they apply to the wounds of their ants. Bacteria combined with cockroaches give them their infernal ability (as far as we can see) to live almost anywhere and eat almost anything. Hooper’s background in nature and his extensive travels (I suppose being the editor of New Scientist has its perks) bring insight to his accounts. Although he mistakenly claims that organisms reduce entropy, sometimes they seem to associate harmony with interdependence (animals still need meat), and they exaggerate the “anger and fear” that Darwin’s Origin produced among “religious governments”, these are minor contradictions.
Darwin himself was a naturalist too shrewd to ignore the interdependence of nature. He did not know the secrets of the connection between coral stones or algae, but he was fascinated by orchids, and the wisdom of nature, as we see now, is widespread in his writings. The famous last stanza of Origin (“everlasting colors so beautiful”) emphasizes not the merciless selfishness of nature but the web of its existence. “It is interesting,” wrote Darwin, “to imagine an enclosed reservoir, clothed with many different kinds of plants . . .”
This is Darwin’s message that we most need to hear today. Hooper wrote: “The environmental problem we are facing is caused by a failure to see the nature of nature, a failure of our philosophical and economic systems. “We are symbiotic creatures at the deepest level of our cells.” Feeling one with nature, he says, is not a green woolly myth or an ancient scientific mystery. It reflects our best understanding of life and we must listen to it.
