Insights into eukaryogenesis from the fossil record.

ABSTRACT: Eukaryogenesis-the process by which the eukaryotic cell emerged-has long puzzled scientists. It has been assumed that the fossil record has little to say about this process, in part because important characters such as the nucleus and mitochondria are rarely preserved, and in part because the prevailing model of early eukaryotes implies that eukaryogenesis occurred before the appearance of the first eukaryotes recognized in the fossil record. Here, I propose a different scenario for early eukaryote evolution than is widely assumed. Rather than crown group eukaryotes originating in the late Paleoproterozoic and remaining ecologically minor components for more than half a billion years in a prokaryote-dominated world, I argue for a late Mesoproterozoic origin of the eukaryotic crown group, i

SUBMITTER: Porter SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7333905 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature