6533b854fe1ef96bd12afc6a
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Molecular Phylogeny of Eumetazoa: Genes in Sponges (Porifera) Give Evidence for Monophyly of Animals
W. E. G. Müllersubject
MonophylybiologyPhylogenetic treePhylogeneticsLast universal ancestorMolecular phylogeneticsZoologybiology.organism_classificationOrganismArchaeaEumetazoadescription
At present, the universal phylogenetic tree exhibits a tripartite division of the living world and includes Bacteria (“eubacterial”), Archaea (“archebacterial”), and Eucarya (“eukaryotic”) branches (Woese et al. 1991) with the Progenote as the common ancestor (Woese 1987). It is difficult to assess the timely appearance of the first living organism. Some first decipherable evidence of early life has apparently been identified in Swaziland (South Africa) and Pilbara Supergroup (Western Australia) sediments, and dates back 3550 to 3000 Ma (million years) ago; these are stromatolites (see Walter 1996), microfossils, and particulate organic matter (reviewed in Schopf 1994). Eucarya are roughly subdivided further into Diplomonada, Microsporidia, slime molds, ciliates, fungi, plants, and animals (reviewed in Iwabe et al. 1989). Animals are grouped into unicellular Eukaryota, which may have arisen ≈1400 Ma ago (Schopf et al. 1973), and Metazoa, which probably evolved 1000 to 700 Ma ago (reviewed in Willmer 1994).
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998-01-01 |