phylogeny

Despite recent advances in the study of eukaryogenesis, much remains unresolved about the origin and evolution of the most complex domain of life.

A lot happened in the hundreds of millions years separating the first and last eukaryotic common ancestors, but when and how most features arose remains a mystery.

A team proposes that the addition of a small accessory subunit to the carbon-fixing enzyme was key to improving its catalytic properties and specificity to CO₂.

A survey of more than 200 whale skulls has unveiled bursts of evolution over the past 50 million years.

The findings mean that penguins may struggle to adapt under rapid climate change, researchers say.

A fossil analysis suggests that the yunnanozoan, a wormlike fish that flourished around 520 million years ago, sported structures that were the precursors of the head and jaws of modern vertebrates.

A new study using fairly complete genetic datasets of two phyla of small suspension feeders (Ectoprocta and Entoprocta) reopens the debate on the phylogenetic relationships between them and other animals.

Genetic studies have made it clear that eukaryotic horizontal gene transfer can and does happen. Exactly how, though, remains speculative.

Horizontally transferred genes play significant roles in eukaryotic genomes

DNA passed to and from all kinds of organisms, even across kingdoms, has helped shape the tree of life, to a large and undisputed degree in microbes and also unexpectedly in multicellular fungi, plants, and animals.

The fish use their stomach to swell up to three times their size. Is this why they can’t use the organ to digest proteins?

Genetic testing of people who died in Kyrgyzstan eight years before plague reached Europe reveals an ancient strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

A team of scientists have discovered an ancient arthropod that may show the origins of branched limbs and the first gill-like breathing structures in the clade.

The Scientist spoke with Ohio State University microbiologist Matthew Sullivan about a recent expedition that identified thousands of RNA viruses from water samples and cataloged them into novel phylogenic groups.

Researchers use genetic clues to track the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria from the environment to patients.

The discovery, made on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, constitutes an exceptionally high number of new mammals to be described in a single paper.

Shared features, such as thick, slimy skin and a throat filled with teeth, suggest that medusafishes are all related.

Phylogenomics data place the enigmatic plankton in the middle of the algal family tree, despite their apparent lack of plastids—an organelle characteristic of all other algae.