Theme: The Three Domain Hypothesis

 
This is a series of postings that describe the Three Domain Hypothesis. The Three Domain Hypothesis is the idea that life is divided into three domains—bacteria, archaebacteria, and eukaryotes—and that the archaebacteria and eukaryotes share a common ancestor. An example of this tree of life is shown on the Dept. of Energy (USA) Joint Genome Initiative website [JGI Microbial Genomes] (left).

The hypothesis was promoted by Carl Woese in the 1980's but the pure form has now been abandoned and replaced with a “net of life” concept of early evolution as shown in the figure below. This figure is taken from Ford Doolittle's Scientific American article "Uprooting the Tree of Life" (February 2000). © Scientific American




The Three Domain Hypothesis (part 1) (Nov. 17, 2006 )

The Three Domain Hypothesis (part 2) (Nov. 22, 2006)

The Three Domain Hypothesis (part 3) (Nov. 26, 2006)

The Three Domain Hypothesis (part 4) (Nov. 29, 2006)

The Three Domain Hypothesis (part 5) (Dec. 8, 2006)

The Three Domain Hypothesis (part 6) Carl Woese (Dec. 31, 2006)

Now the IDiots Don't Get Evolution (Feb. 14, 2007)

The Web of Life (March 15, 2007)

Is "Prokaryote" a Useful Term? (October 4, 2007)

Celebrating the Three Domain Hypothesis (October 18, 2007)

The Tree of Life (May 22, 2008)

Sequence Alignment (June 22, 2008)

On the Origin of Eukaryotes (December 27, 2008)

The Tree of Life (July 29, 2009)

Perspectives on the Tree of Life: Ford Doolittle (July 30, 2009)

Perspectives on the Tree of Life: Day One (July 31, 2009)

Perspectives on the Tree of Life: Day Two (August 1, 2009)

Perspectrives of the Tree of Life: Day Three (August 7, 2009)