Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: The increasing size of timetrees in recent years has led to a focus on diversification analyses to better understand patterns of macroevolution. Thus far, nearly all studies have been conducted with eukaryotes primarily because phylogenies have been more difficult to reconstruct and calibrate to geologic time in prokaryotes. Here, we have estimated a timetree of 11,784 'species' of prokaryotes and explored their pattern of diversification. We used data from the small subunit ribosomal RNA along with an evolutionary framework from previous multi-gene studies to produce three alternative timetrees. For each timetree we surprisingly found a constant net diversification rate derived from an exponential increase of lineages and showing no evidence of saturation (rate decline), the same pattern found previously in eukaryotes. The implication is that prokaryote diversification as a whole is the result of the random splitting of lineages and is neither limited by existing diversity (filled niches) nor responsive in any major way to environmental changes.
Source: Molecular Biology and Evolution
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: National Science Foundation
Awards: Dimensions: Collaborative Research: Integrating genetic, taxonomic, and functional diversity of tetrapods across the Americas and through extinction risk, Collaborative Research: ABI Development: Enabling discoveries across disciplines through a synthesis of time-calibrated evolutionary histories
OpenAlex ID: W2562763701