Tier und Pflanze in intrazellularer Symbiose

Abstract

THE extent and significance of symbiosis are matters of general interest. The delicate adjustments that enable yeasts to interpenetrate 'the tissues of insects, algae those of corals, and bacteria those of cuttlefish, resulting in mutual advantages to both partners in each association, form an evolutionary topic of no little importance. But the subject assumes practical and economic value when it is realised that the nutrition of our domestic ruminant animals is carried out not solely by their own enzymes and tissues, but is due partially to the activity of symbiotic bacteria (and probably to Protozoa also) which live within the cattle. So great has been the increase of our knowledge of these associations in the last fifteen years, that the large volume under review does not cover the whole ground, but deals only with those animals in which the invading micro-organisms take up positions within certain cells of the other partner. The no less interesting cases of symbiosis in which the invader lies in the cavity of its partner's body (as in cattle) are, with one exception, deliberately omitted.

Tier und Pflanze in intrazellularer Symbiose.

By Prof. P. Buchner. Pp. xi + 462 + Tafel 2. (Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger, 1921.) 114 mk.