Proving universal common ancestry with similar sequences

Leonardo de Oliveira Martins; David Posada

doi:10.4081/eb.2012.e5

Proving universal common ancestry with similar sequences

https://doi.org/10.4081/eb.2012.e5

PDF HTML

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2012)

Submitted: 7 March 2012
Accepted: 18 April 2012

Published: 9 May 2012

tree of life, model selection, common ancestry,

Abstract Views: 4948

PDF: 886
HTML: 228

Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

Leonardo de Oliveira Martins
leomrtns@uvigo.es
Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Immunology, University of Vigo, Spain.
David Posada Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Immunology, University of Vigo, Spain.

Douglas Theobald recently developed an interesting test putatively capable of quantifying the evidence for a Universal Common Ancestry uniting the three domains of life (Eukarya, Archaea and Bacteria) against hypotheses of Independent Origins for some of these domains. We review here his model, in particular in relation to the treatment of Horizontal Gene Transfer and to the quality of sequence alignment.

David Posada, Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Immunology, University of Vigo

Supporting Agencies

European Research Council

Martins, L. de O., & Posada, D. (2012). Proving universal common ancestry with similar sequences. Trends in Evolutionary Biology, 4(1), e5. https://doi.org/10.4081/eb.2012.e5