Which species's evolution is most successful?

[Pete]

A group that displays a great radiation into many species can be considered to be successful.

Yes, but the discussion is specifically about "the most successful species".
If you want to measure the success of a parent by the success of their descendants, then the only logical conclusion is to say that the first species was the most successful.

I couldn't resist this snippet:
There is a story that a cleric asked evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane what could be inferred about God from the works of nature. Haldane supposedly replied, "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

Apparently a fifth of all known animal species are beetles, and half of those are weevils.

 

[Pete]

I don't know why anyone is considering mitochondria - chloroplasts are surely just as eligible, and much more numerous and widespread

 

[Pete]

There are NO species of bacteria more numerous than the number of mitochondria world wide.

That's a very bold statement. First, I'm not sure that all mitochondria can be considered a single species.
Second, allow me to quote the late, great, Steven Jay Gould:

Not only does the Earth contain more bacterial organisms than all others combined (scarcely surprising, given their minimal size and mass); not only do bacteria live in more places and work in a greater variety of metabolic ways; not only did bacteria alone constitute the first half of life's history, with no slackening in diversity thereafter; but also, and most surprisingly, total bacterial biomass (even at such minimal weight per cell) may exceed all the rest of life combined, even forest trees, once we include the subterranean populations as well. Need any more be said in making a case for the modal bacter as life's constant center of maximal influence and importance?

Food for thought!

Here is another source, but of questionable reliability (BBC - AS Guru):

biologists estimate that a gram of soil can contain up to 100 million living bacteria, and that the total mass of microbe life on Earth is 25 times greater than the total mass of all animals!

And another one:
whyfiles.org

 

[paulsamuel]

I don't know why anyone is considering mitochondria - chloroplasts are surely just as eligible, and much more numerous and widespread

why do you say that? chloroplasts are in plants, mitochondria are in plants and animals

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Yes, but the discussion is specifically about "the most successful species".

The most success species would then be the ancestor species that gave rise to the most other species, which would be something like the very first mother cell of all cells.

Hence you desires to have a certain discussion might not be based on biological reality.

 

[paulsamuel]

That's a very bold statement. First, I'm not sure that all mitochondria can be considered a single species.

Perhaps not now, but the endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria happened once from a single species of endosymbiont, presumably.

Second, allow me to quote the late, great, Steven Jay Gould:

Of course I agree emphatically with Gould, but there are not more bacterial organisms than all other cells of organisms combined and each cell can have many mitochondria. I think mitochondria win that round.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

It is actually not easy to find out which is the most abundant organism on this planet.

Here is one contender

That adds up to a lot of carbon. "Prochlorococcus is a major ocean sink for carbon," Church testifies. "It is responsible for 40 percent of the photosynthesis (carbon dioxide removal) on Earth." A quart of ocean water often contains 100 million Prochlorococcus cells. Its population in the global ocean could be as high as 10 trillion trillion. The partnership speculates that it "may well be the most abundant organism on this planet."

Here is another opinion:

My lab is currently investigating the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, perhaps the most abundant organism on the planet, and one that is found predominantly in biofilms.

A second one supporting Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa Fun Facts! Perhaps the most abundant organism on the planet!

Or is it Krill?

One question occupying Tom Trull, leader of Biogeochemical Cycles Programme at the CRC, is whether disappearance of half the Antarctic's sea ice by the end of the century would also halve the Southern Ocean's krill, the tiny planktonic crustaceans which are most abundant animal organism on earth.

another opinion:

Microbial ecology is also a field that evolves rapidly. Molecular techniques have allowed experimentalists to address questions concerning, for example, microbial diversity, unanswerable with traditional methods. Micro-organisms unknown a few decades ago have been shown to be among the most abundant organisms on earth such as, for example, the tiny cyanobacteria dominating primary production in large parts of the ocean, and SAR11, a bacterium which is probably the most abundant organism on earth, but whose function in the ecosystem is still obscure.

A new one - nematodes:

Nematodes - One of the most abundant animals on Earth, many species of these transparent, microscopic worms are parasites, causing important diseases of plants, animals, and humans. Others exist as free-living forms in soil and aquatic environments or in food products such as beer and vinegar.

and then I had enough of searching in google...there is so much shit information on the WWW.

 

[Pete]

why do you say that? chloroplasts are in plants, mitochondria are in plants and animals

I was somehow under the impression that mitochondria - animals, chloroplasts - plants. Thanks for the correction!

 

[Pete]

Of course I agree emphatically with Gould, but there are not more bacterial organisms than all other cells of organisms combined and each cell can have many mitochondria. I think mitochondria win that round.

Think about what you're saying.

You have an animal on on side of the scales, and an equal mass of bacteria on the other.
Now, remove all the mitochondria from the animal. Remove an equal number of bacteria from the right. Have you removed all the bacteria from the scales?

 

[Pete]

The most success species would then be the ancestor species that gave rise to the most other species, which would be something like the very first mother cell of all cells.

Like I said.

Hence you desires to have a certain discussion might not be based on biological reality.

If "most successful" = "most descendants" or "most radiation", then there is one very boring answer - the first one ever. Yay.

Or, we could use a different measure of success; one that leads to an entertaining discussion...

 

[spuriousmonkey]

The most succesful species are:

Monkey (any monkey) - because they are funny

Bunny - Because they reproduce nicely

Wasps - because they are the most feared creatures on earth

mosquitos - because they can make any place on lovely earth a living hell (go to lapland at the wrong time of the year to find out)

Atheists - they don't rely on their limbic system as much as theists.



is this better?

 

[ElectricFetus]

I'm going with spuriousmonkey on this: the most succesful speacies is, drum roll please

: "The species of life that is the ancestor of all other live on the planet" period, there can't be any arguing over that so everyone shut the hell up!!!!
Most successful species that still alive well that’s a harder issue.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Most successful species that still alive well that?s a harder issue.

That would be me!

 

[paulsamuel]

Think about what you're saying.

You have an animal on on side of the scales, and an equal mass of bacteria on the other.
Now, remove all the mitochondria from the animal. Remove an equal number of bacteria from the right. Have you removed all the bacteria from the scales?

I know what I'm saying and I know how to count!

We're not talking about mass, we're talking about numbers.

We're not talking about animals, we're talking about all eukaryotes and all their cells and all their mitochondria.

Now you take all eukaryotic organisms, times the average number of cells in each organism, times the average number of mitochondria in each cell. Is that number equal to, less than, or greater than the number of bacteria in the world. I would say greater than, but I could be wrong.

 

[ElectricFetus]

paulsamuel,

I will go with "far less" mitochondria then bacteria. There are a roughly estimated 5x10^30 bacteria cells in the world. Look at it this way if half of all the biomass is prokaryotic cells, and only a small fraction of the weight of eukaryotes is of roughly equally sized to bacteria Mitochondria. Add that up and well there far less mitochondria cell for cell then bacteria.
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/count_bact.html

 

[paulsamuel]

paulsamuel,

I will go with "far less" mitochondria then bacteria. There are a roughly estimated 5x10^30 bacteria cells in the world. Look at it this way if half of all the biomass is prokaryotic cells, and only a small fraction of the weight of eukaryotes is of roughly equally sized to bacteria Mitochondria. Add that up and well there far less mitochondria cell for cell then bacteria.
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/count_bact.html

you could be right, i haven't really thought about it that much, but listen to this:

there are around 6 X 10^9 humans with 1X10^14 cells each and with at least 10 mitochondria per cell = 6 X 10^24 mitochondria (that's a conservative estimate). That's just humans. Add in other organisms and you can see why I would think that there were more mitochondria.

Question now is why do you think there are less?

 

[paulsamuel]

you could be right, i haven't really thought about it that much, but listen to this:

there are around 6 X 10^9 humans with 1X10^14 cells each and with at least 10 mitochondria per cell = 6 X 10^24 mitochondria (that's a conservative estimate). That's just humans. Add in other organisms and you can see why I would think that there were more mitochondria.

Question now is why do you think there are less?

found:

Each mitochondrion -- there are about 1,700 in every human cell -

from: http://www.ancientdna.com/FAQ.htm

making the final calculation ca. 6 x 10^26 mitochondria, just from humans!

 

[ElectricFetus]

There arn't 1700 per cell in all cells, it dependent on cell type: ovas have several thousand and skin cells have several dozen.

 

[paulsamuel]

There arn't 1700 per cell in all cells, it dependent on cell type: ovas have several thousand and skin cells have several dozen.

I think that was an avg. #/cell, nevertheless, there are at least 10. then, as a conservative est., there are 6 x 10^24 mitochondria just in humans!!!!!!!!!!

if your estimate of number of bacterial cells is correct, then there's no way there are more bacteria than mitochondria

 

[spidergoat]

"They [bacteria] cannot team up to manage matter, energy, or other living processes on the scale of a centimetre, let alone on the scale of a city, country, nation, planet, solar system or galaxy."

Yes, they can, it's called quorum sensing.

"If enough bacteria are present (a quorum),... millions of bioluminescent bacteria might decide to emit light simultaneously so that their host, a squid, can glow-perhaps to distract predators and escape....researchers have shown that bacteria also use quorum sensing to form the slimy biofilms that cover your teeth and eat through ship hulls and to regulate reproduction and the formation of spores. "

from Scientific American Feb 04

Did you know that there are more bacteria cells in your gut than all of your body's cells combined? Bacteria may also have piggybacked on our space probes, and landed on Mars! They inhabit the sea floor down to unknown depths, and the coldest environments in antarctica.