The eubiontes are the first living systems that originated from the evolution of the most complex protobionts. They were very simple unicellular organisms capable of transmitting to their descendants information about their internal structure and degree of functional organization.
Eubionts were considered simple or primitive cells with the ability to feed, grow and fragment into smaller ones to reproduce.
In theory they would be the ancestors of prokaryotic cells (bacteria) and, according to the physicochemical theory of the origin of life, the protobionts were the predecessors of the eubionts.
Protobionts were a mixture of organic substances capable of exchanging matter and energy with the environment where they lived.
Eubionts and Protobionts
The term eubiontes comes from the Latin root eu = good, bios = life and ontos = being. That is, it is an improved structure derived from the protobiont, which translated from Latin means: protos = first, bios = life, ontos = being.
The terms eubionts and protobionts were proposed by the Russian biochemist Oparin Aleksandr Ivanovich.
According to Oparin, protobionts were precellular structures differentiated from each other in several basic aspects: the degree of internal organization, their stability and the type of substances of which they were made.
Eukaryotes are "cells made up of cell nuclei and organelles with a semipermeable membrane"; on the other hand, prokaryotes do not have cellular organelles.
Evolution of the Eubioentes
The Theory Oparin describes primitive Earth conditions that gave rise to life, through the interaction of the chemical elements that created more complex organic compounds.
In this way, we went from the gradual evolution of inorganic to organic matter, until the formation of the first cells, which later gave rise to the appearance of living beings, as we know them.
Protobionts could not reproduce regularly, whereas the first eubionts could. They had metabolism and had functional growth and self-multiplication mechanisms, which allowed them to develop better.
The protobionts became a source of food for the eubionts. Then, protobionts and free organic molecules became scarce, which produced evolutionary competition between eubionts, since they were their food.
As the eobionts evolved, they were divided into two groups, according to their feeding system.
One of them developed an efficient system for ingesting organic particles, through a process of phagocytosis. Multicellular organisms later emerged from this group.
What were the first Eubionts like?
The first eubionts were heterotrophs, that is, they could not make food on their own so they had to take it from wherever it was available.
In the primitive seas of that time, there was a large amount of dissolved organic matter that had formed abiotic.
Although the first "primitive soup" where these organisms lived became impoverished, preventing the reproduction of life -due to the lack of molecules that made it possible-, biological evolution allowed the subsequent appearance of autotrophic beings, that is, capable of feeding by themselves and then the evolutionary process began.
References
- Gabriel Álvarez Carranza. Biología I. Threshold editorial, SA México, 2007. Retrieved on October 6, 2017 from books.google.co.ve
- Origin of life. Consulted of benitobios.blogspot.com
- Eubionts. Consulted of portalacademico.cch.unam.mx
- Origin and Evolution of Living Beings Consulted of e-mas.co.cl
- Chemical evolution. Consulted of cecyt6.ipn.mx
- Aleksandr Oparin. Consulted of es.wikipedia.org
- The primitive atmosphere: The first Protobiont. Consulted of biologiamedica.blogspot.com