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Bootstrapping the Energy Flow in the Beginning of Life

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Abstract

This paper suggests that the energy flow on which all living structures depend only started up slowly, the low-energy, initial phase starting up a second, slightly more energetic phase, and so on. In this way, the build up of the energy flow follows a bootstrapping process similar to that found in the development of computers, the first generation making possible the calculations necessary for constructing the second one, etc. In the biogenetic upstart of an energy flow, non-metals in the lower periods of the Periodic Table of Elements would have constituted the most primitive systems, their operation being enhanced and later supplanted by elements in the higher periods that demand more energy. This bootstrapping process would put the development of the metabolisms based on the second period elements carbon, nitrogen and oxygen at the end of the evolutionary process rather than at, or even before, the biogenetic event.

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Acknowledgments

Fedonkin conducted this study within the Priority Program 18 of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (“Problem of the Origin of the Earth’s Biosphere and Its Evolution”) and is also supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. Kees Libbenga and Huub de Groot, with their stimulating and informative discussions with Hengeveld, contributed to this paper. Thomas Reydon, as the Editor of Acta Biotheoretica, was extremely patient, allowing the time for these ideas to mature. Claire Hengeveld contributed by giving much time for many essential corrections to be made, thus adding to the paper’s clarity!

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ecological Science, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1087, Amsterdam, HV, 1081, The Netherlands

    R. Hengeveld

  2. Department of Ecology and Environment, Alterra, P.O. Box 47, Wageningen, AA, 6700, The Netherlands

    R. Hengeveld

  3. Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    M. A. Fedonkin

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  1. R. Hengeveld
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Hengeveld, R., Fedonkin, M.A. Bootstrapping the Energy Flow in the Beginning of Life. Acta Biotheor 55, 181–226 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-007-9019-4

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