Title: Shuffling evolution, the biosphere gene pool and their role in the evolution of the biosphere

Abstract

Symbiogenesis involves horizontal gene transfer (HGT) as one of its main drivers. Due to the double chain character of HGT, genes with an adaptive mutation spread very rapidly among existing species, creating new ones. This causes these genes to spread faster than they are destroyed. As a result, they become practically immortal, forming a "biospheric gene pool" (BGP). Not each of these genes exists in every species, and certainly not all of them are expressed. The vast majority of genes in BGP are repressed by regulatory genes. However, they are often expressed and subjected to natural selection. This mechanism for testing repressed genes for adaptability can be thought of as "shuffling a deck of genes" by analogy with shuffling a deck of cards. Before the Phanerozoic eon, both BGP and the operational part of each genome were quite poor. Accordingly, biological evolution during these eons was slow due to the extreme rarity of adaptive mutations. However, over these approximately 3.5 billion years, BGP gradually accumulated a huge number of genes. We believe that multicellular eukaryotes that appeared at the end of the Proterozoic eon, could, with the help of HGT, shuffled these genes accumulated in BGP through prokaryotes living in these multicellular organisms. Perhaps this was the reason for the "Cambrian explosion" and the high (and increasing) rate of evolution in the Phanerozoic eon compared to the previous ones. Modern anthropogenic modification of the biosphere refers to the Cambrian explosion as a real explosion to the combustion process. But the Cambrian explosion led to the complication of the biosphere, while the anthropogenic "superexplosion", on the contrary, to its simplification. The shuffling evolution continues at an increasing pace. But whether he can compensate for a man-made super explosion is a big question

Biography

I began my career at Moscow State University, where I received my Ph.D. in biophysics in 1969. I then moved into oceanography and ecology, taking part in more than 20 biological science cruises and a dozen Arctic coastal expeditions. I have worked extensively on multidimensional statistical models of plankton communities and wrote computer programs to implement them. In 1983, I got my doctorate in systems ecology. In 1995 I moved to the USA and for the last 20 years I have worked as a principal systems analyst in a private company CALIBRE. Simultaneously, I continue my research in the field of evolution and became the editor-in-chief of the Journal Evolutionary Science. In 2013, Gary Sorrell and I founded the non-profit organization Global Mind Share, of which I am still president. I have published 5 books and about 90 articles in scientific journals and chapters in scientific monographs.