Early evolution without a tree of life
Biology Direct 2011, 6:36 doi:10.1186/1745-6150-6-36
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at:http://www.biology-direct.com/content/6/1/36
| Received: | 25 March 2011 |
| Accepted: | 30 June 2011 |
| Published: | 30 June 2011 |
© 2011 Martin; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Life is a chemical reaction. Three major transitions in early evolution are considered without recourse to a tree of life. The origin of prokaryotes required a steady supply of energy and electrons, probably in the form of molecular hydrogen stemming from serpentinization. Microbial genome evolution is not a treelike process because of lateral gene transfer and the endosymbiotic origins of organelles. The lack of true intermediates in the prokaryote-to-eukaryote transition has a bioenergetic cause.
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