Abstract
Phosphorus, in the form of phosphate, has played an important role in the origin and evolution of life on several different levels. It was, most likely, a key component in the early precursors of RNA that existed before real life, where it both stored information and acted as a catalyst. It plays an essential role in both the genetics and the energy systems of all living cells as well as in the cell membrane of all modern cells. Phosphorus has also had a decisive role in forming the climatic and atmospheric conditions that set the boundary conditions for evolution and led to us humans and the world we know now.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In the context of evolution, the ‘chicken and egg’ metaphor is actually a dumb one as the question which came first has an obvious answer. Wherever we draw the evolutionary line for when the chicken as a species first appeared, the egg was there long before as more primitive birds, dinosaurs, lizards, and fishes all have eggs.
- 2.
It has been argued that the co-precipitation of oxidized iron and phosphates with which we are familiar today would not have occurred the same way in the ancient oceans because the concentration of silica was much higher then and that silica would have outcompeted phosphorus on the iron-binding sites, and the phosphate therefore would not have become a limiting factor for photosynthesis at the time. However, a lower rate of carbon burial strongly points to a lower carbon fixation and the iron–phosphate precipitation mechanism provides a reasonable explanation for it.
- 3.
It should be noted that more than 2 billion years ago the continents were not in the same positions as they are today. Over the history of the Earth there have been at least four occasions when all the landmass formed one supercontinent surrounded by one ocean. The land then broke up into separate continents and reformed again. The latest supercontinent, called Pangaea, was formed 300 million years ago and broke up to form the globe with which we are familiar some 200 million years ago. The oldest known supercontinent, Columbia or Nuna, was probably assembled some 2 billion years ago, that is, at the end of or just after the Huronian glaciation. It lasted for about 500 million years, but the exact configuration and geodynamic history are not well understood. It was followed by Rodinia (1,100–750 million years ago), the short-lived Pannotia (600–540 million years ago) with large amounts of land near the poles and a small equatorial strip connecting the polar masses, and Pangaea.
References
Altman S, Baer MF, Bartkiewicz M, Gold H, Guerrier-Takada C, Kirsebom LA, Lumelsky N, Peck K (1989) Catalysis by the RNA subunit of RNase P: a minireview. Gene 82(1):63–64
Arrhenius S (1908) Worlds in the making: the evolution of the universe. Harper and Row, New York
Cech TR (1990) Self-splicing of group I introns. Annu Rev Biochem 59:543–568
Corliss JB, Baross JA, Hoffman SE (1981) An hypothesis concerning the relationship between submarine hot springs and the origin of life on Earth. Oceanol Acta, p 59. Proceedings of the 26th International Geological Congress
Crick F (1970) Central dogma of molecular biology. Nature 227(5258):561–563
Horgan J (1991) “In the beginning…”. Scientific American. February :100–109. http://www.scienceclarified.com/dispute/Vol-1/Did-life-on-Earth-begin-in-the-little-warm-pond.html#ixzz2CHsxgRdW. Accessed 15 Nov 2012
Szostac J (2012) http://exploringorigins.org/. Accessed 15 Nov 2012
Watson JD, Crick FHC (1953) A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 171:737–738
Wolfe-Simon F, Blum JS, Kulp TR, Gordon GW, Hoeft SE, Pett-Ridge J, Stolz JF, Webb SM, Weber PK, Davies PCW, Anbar AD, Oremland RS (2011) A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus. Science 332(6034):1163–1166 (published online 2 Dec 2010)
NASA database http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect19/Sect19_2a.html. Accessed 15 Oct 2012
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Mikhail Butusov
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Butusov, M., Jernelöv, A. (2013). The Role of Phosphorus in the Origin of Life and in Evolution. In: Phosphorus. SpringerBriefs in Environmental Science, vol 9. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6803-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6803-5_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6802-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6803-5
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)