You, a non-synthesizing-chromista, consume a rhodophyte, and to everyone's surprise, it doesn't die, but you live happily ever after. You provide the rhodophyte with chemicals, and it converts those, via sunlight, to sugar for you. Marvellous. It's a little engine living right inside you.
Well, almost. The chlorophyll gained from the rhodophyte helps a lot, but it could still be improved. For example, it doesn't work in deep water, where the sunlight is reduced.
Another of those little copy errors could make a different kind of chlorophyll that works better in the deep ocean and gives you the opportunity to colonise areas where nothing lives at the moment. But that will mean having less of the tried-and-tested chlorophyll that works so well near the surface.
Call me Nemo
I like paddling
Evolution starts with the Last Universal Ancestor.
You can find out what happened before evolution here.
You can also short-cut to Land plants, or Animals
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