"Endosymbiosis. Homage to Lynn Margulis"

In her theory on endosymbiosis, published in 1967, Lynn Margulis states that eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus), from which all plants, fungi and animals descend, emerged from the symbiotic fusion of primitive bacteria (prokaryotic organisms with cells without a nucleus). 

With this theory, Margulis contradicted Neo-Darwinist thinking or the modern synthesis trend, which at that time dominated the history of evolution, according to which evolutionary changas come about as a result of competition between  independent organisms. ln contrast with this model, she offers us a history featuring interdependent multitudes united at every level of life. 

In Endosymbiosis: Homage to Lynn Margulis, Shoshanah Dubiner pays tribute to this theory and to the "beauty of microbiallife" to which the biologist devoted her career. Bacteria, protists and other micro-organisms are shown in dense networks of sociability, the "intimacy of strangers", to use her term. The version we show here is an animation made expressly for the exhibition by David Domingo.

© Shoshanah Dubiner (Endosymbiosis: Homage to Lynn Margulis, 2012), animated by David Domingo.