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Author Topic:   Only 1 Tree of Life?
Dr Jack
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Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 16 of 28 (529147)
10-08-2009 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Matt P
10-08-2009 12:27 PM


Re: Three branches of one tree
Matt P writes:
Just a moment...
What a fascinating paper! Was it the one you meant to link though? It doesn't seem to mention the divergance of the three domains at all?

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Matt P
Member (Idle past 4774 days)
Posts: 106
From: Tampa FL
Joined: 03-18-2005


Message 17 of 28 (529159)
10-08-2009 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Dr Jack
10-08-2009 12:43 PM


Re: Three branches of one tree
Hi Mr Jack-
Eric Smith gave the presentation on the pool idea, and I've had a hard time finding a paper which actually cites it, unfortunately. The small bit on the codons was as related as I can find.
I'll see if I can find something better- the presentation was in early 2008 so the idea may be in press or may never have left the ground. It was an intriguing hypothesis, but perhaps never made it past peer-review.

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Matt P
Member (Idle past 4774 days)
Posts: 106
From: Tampa FL
Joined: 03-18-2005


Message 18 of 28 (529164)
10-08-2009 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Dr Jack
10-08-2009 12:43 PM


Re: Three branches of one tree
Aha! Found it- I got the presenter wrong, unfortunately. It was Nigel Goldenfield who presented this idea, and here's the article:
Just a moment...
Unfortunately the early evolution of eukaryotes isn't in that paper, and was likely just in the presentation.

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Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 19 of 28 (529316)
10-08-2009 8:46 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Dr Jack
10-08-2009 4:21 AM


Iunno. I tend to see the three domains as separate trees, considering how much they have diverged even if they shared common ancestry.

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Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 20 of 28 (529354)
10-09-2009 4:32 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Taz
10-08-2009 8:46 PM


Iunno. I tend to see the three domains as separate trees, considering how much they have diverged even if they shared common ancestry.
So... even though they all share a common ancestor, you're going to view them as different trees of life anyway? o_O
I can only think you're using a different meaning of "Tree of Life" to the rest of us. In any case it's not a particularly useful view (any more than it's useful to view different phyla as different "trees of life"), firstly because the homologies between the different domains mean that discoveries from one domain can be transferred to others (for example, discoveries of certain proteins in Archaea have been used to search for homologous proteins in Eukarya and then, using the archaeon as a model, to understand what the proteins do in the eukaryote) and, secondly, because the borders between the domains are not clear cut: horizontal gene transfer occurs between Archaea and Bacteria, and organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts have their endosymbiotic origin in Bacteria, meaning Eukarya cannot be fully understood without investigating other domains.

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Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 21 of 28 (529658)
10-10-2009 12:40 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Dr Jack
10-09-2009 4:32 AM


Look, you have to draw the line somewhere. The more we look at life, the more the line between life and non-life blurs. Even if we do find a completely different "tree" of life that did not share the same genetic ancestry as the life we normally know, one could still make the argument that technically both "trees" are made of the same recycled nitrogen and carbon from the same planet, so it's technically one tree.
But don't stop there. If we find life on another planet, it's still the same tree. Both life on that planet and life on this planet probably share the same matter that came from the same supernovas.
As far as I see, trying to pin down this so-called "tree" thing is futile.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 22 of 28 (530063)
10-12-2009 4:17 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Taz
10-10-2009 12:40 AM


There's a huge difference between arguing that two things are related because they're both made out of matter from supernovae, and arguing that two things are related because both descended from exactly the same living cell, which used RNA and DNA with the same (or almost exactly the same) transcription language; already possessed some of the same copying machinery and shared parts of the genome with both descendants.

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ApostateAbe
Member (Idle past 4627 days)
Posts: 175
From: Klamath Falls, OR
Joined: 02-02-2005


Message 23 of 28 (530164)
10-12-2009 3:01 PM


Somebody mentioned viruses. Viruses have their own trees of life, and for that reason some biologists exclude them from being "life." But I would count them as life.

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Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 24 of 28 (530200)
10-12-2009 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by ApostateAbe
10-12-2009 3:01 PM


Somebody mentioned viruses. Viruses have their own trees of life, and for that reason some biologists exclude them from being "life." But I would count them as life.
Most biologists do not count viruses as life, but not for that reason. Rather they're not normally considered life because they have no metabolism and are incapable of reproducing themselves but instead only capable of inducing others to reproduce them for them.

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ApostateAbe
Member (Idle past 4627 days)
Posts: 175
From: Klamath Falls, OR
Joined: 02-02-2005


Message 25 of 28 (530260)
10-12-2009 7:58 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Dr Jack
10-12-2009 5:09 PM


I think you are right, MrJack. At least that is the reason they give, and I don't have much reason to doubt it. There was a discussion about this in my high school biology class. But I still suspect the underlying reason is that viruses don't fit into the patterns that all of the rest of life fits into. And the root cause of the mismatch is that viruses don't belong to the standard phylogenetic tree. The definitions of "life" are made by finding characters that encompass every fringe clade of the standard tree of life, which means that the definitions are likely to exclude viruses and perhaps outerspace alien beings that otherwise seem like life.

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maryjones 
Suspended Junior Member (Idle past 4461 days)
Posts: 1
From: Basel city
Joined: 01-10-2012


Message 26 of 28 (647560)
01-10-2012 10:05 AM


Hey,Good thread..I am looking for a more details of such topic.

  
Tangle
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From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


(3)
Message 27 of 28 (647564)
01-10-2012 10:36 AM


Actually calling it a 'tree' of life is a simplification when you get down to the level of bacteria etc. We now know that horizontal as well as vertical (treelike) gene transfers occur which join up some of the branches and it gets to be spaghetti at the bottom of the trunk e.g.
More here:
Horizontal gene transfer - Wikipedia
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 28 of 28 (647956)
01-12-2012 8:45 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by Tangle
01-10-2012 10:36 AM


Hi Tangle
Nice picture.
One tree, many roots
Could be fun to see where the Creationists think Adam and Eve fit in ... and where we are on the chart.
Enjoy.
Edited by Zen Deist, : us

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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