Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

Symbiogenesis refers to the formation of a new species of organism by the integration of two unrelated organisms that live for some time in some form of symbiosis, most probably parasitism or mutualism, into a single organism. If both symbionts begin to reproduce together in a coordinated manner, i.e. so that each daughter organism of symbiotic origin begins to inherit from its parents only the genetic material of both symbionts, the evolutionary fates of the two original species become so interconnected that they sooner or later merge into a single species. Evolutionary dissolution of one species in another species, for example a microscopic parasite or mutualist in its macroscopic host, is sometimes term the Cheshire cat effect (unfortunutly, this term is also used for at least two unrelated phenomena). The relevant literary sources state that, under suitable conditions, a Cheshire cat can gradually disappear and, in the last stage, only its smile remains and, after a certain time, this also disappears. If both symbionts that form a common symbiotic organism produce independent progeny and a new symbiotic organism is formed each time (or at least frequently) through new integration of both symbionts that grew from embryos produced by two unrelated and independent individuals, both species will most probably preserve their species identity (Fig. XXIII.3). This is the frequent case of the symbiosis of fungi and vascular plants. The best known opposite case is the formation eukaryotes, occurring through gradual integration of the members of several unrelated lines of prokaryotic organisms. Completely unrelated phylogenetic lines of organisms can merge through symbiogenesis.