The endosymbiosis of a cyanobacterium led to the formation of the photosynthetic organelle, the chloroplast. Along evolutionary history this organelle proved quite plastic; there are many non-photosynthetic variants with very different functions, e.g., chromoplasts, amyloplasts, apicoplasts. Thus, the name plastid to refer to the group. In contrast, the mitochondrion, the other organelle derived from endosymbiosis, does not display the same degree of plasticity. Why (in a teleonomic sense) such different evolutionary outcomes?
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