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  • Correspondence
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Eukaryote lateral gene transfer is Lamarckian

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, page 754 (2018)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Darwin saw natural variation as operating at random and internally within the organism, with natural selection sculpting species adapted to their environment. Lamarck’s theory involved the inheritance of acquired traits. Although it was not Lamarck’s main contribution1, it is the one that stuck; in Lamarckian inheritance, the environment impresses variation upon individuals, providing them heritable access to new niches. The theories of both Darwin and Lamarck only concerned organisms that we today call eukaryotes. This Correspondence, too, is only about eukaryotes. Evolution in eukaryotes differs from that in prokaryotes, as was always clear to microbiologists, because lateral gene transfer (LGT) was always part of the paradigm for prokaryotic natural variation2. The recognition that genetics and mutations supply eukaryotes with the endogenous, non-directed mechanism of variation that Darwin sought was the triumph of the Modern Synthesis3. Yet genome sequences have spawned many reports proposing LGT as a mechanism of adaptation in eukaryote evolution4. Recent interpretations suggest that eukaryotes acquire genes for adaptively useful traits to gain access to new environments, including anaerobic5, acidic6 and parasitic niches7. Eukaryotic gene acquisition for niche adaptation? Adaptationist claims for eukaryote LGT are Lamarckian in tooth and claw.

The core of eukaryote LGT adaptation claims is that eukaryotes lack the genetic material required to survive in particular environments and acquire the genes needed in order to access those environments from organisms that already live there. Lamarckian? Yes. In eukaryote LGT adaptationism, the environment is the source of natural variation, not the evolving organism itself8. Claims for eukaryote adaptation to anaerobic niches via LGT are perhaps the most common recent theme5. Such claims are founded in single gene phylogenies and overlook the bigger picture that those genes common to eukaryotes and prokaryotes, including genes required for anaerobic metabolism9, trace to the eukaryote common ancestor10, not to LGTs. Moreover, eukaryotes arose and diversified a billion years before atmospheric and marine O2 reached its present levels9,11; the vector of physiological adaptation in eukaryote evolution was from low O2 to high O2 environments, not vice versa.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the European Research Council and the Volkswagen Foundation for financial support.

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  1. Institute for Molecular Evolution, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    William F. Martin

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Martin, W.F. Eukaryote lateral gene transfer is Lamarckian. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 754 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0521-7

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