ReviewCold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology2014
On the age of eukaryotes: evaluating evidence from fossils and molecular clocks.
Review in Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 90 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
90 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- How low can they go? Aerobic respiration by microorganisms under apparent anoxia.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Mitochondrial proteome of the apicomplexan Babesia divergens.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- Environmental phylogenetics supports a steady diversification of crown eukaryotes starting from the mid-Proterozoic.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Signatures of gene transfer in the parallel evolution of osmotrophic specialization in eukaryotes.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Article
- Fatty acid trafficking to mitochondria and peroxisomes inMolecular biology of the cell · 2025Article
- A diverse Palaeoproterozoic microbial ecosystem implies early eukaryogenesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- DPANN Archaea and CPR Bacteria: insights into early cellular evolution?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Chimeric origins and dynamic evolution of central carbon metabolism in eukaryotes.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Reconstructing the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes.PLoS biology · 2024Review
- A taxon-rich and genome-scale phylogeny of Opisthokonta.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Review
- Proterozoic microfossils continue to provide new insights into the rise of complex eukaryotic life.Royal Society open science · 2024Review
- Higher-order interactions and emergent properties of microbial communities: The power of synthetic ecology.Heliyon · 2024Review
- Ichthyosporea: a window into the origin of animals.Communications biology · 2024Review
- Amoebozoan testate amoebae illuminate the diversity of heterotrophs and the complexity of ecosystems throughout geological time.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Physical constraints during Snowball Earth drive the evolution of multicellularity.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Fossil-calibrated molecular clock data enable reconstruction of steps leading to differentiated multicellularity and anisogamy in the Volvocine algae.BMC biology · 2024Article
- Microbial Diversity and Open Questions about the Deep Tree of Life.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
30 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships among eukaryotic lineages has improved dramatically over the few past decades thanks to the development of sophisticated phylogenetic methods and models of evolution, in combination with the increasing availability of sequence data for a variety of eukaryotic lineages. Concurrently, efforts have been made to infer the age of major evolutionary events along the tree of eukaryotes using fossil-calibrated molecular clock-based methods. Here, we review the progress and pitfalls in estimating the age of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) and major lineages. After reviewing previous attempts to date deep eukaryote divergences, we present the results of a Bayesian relaxed-molecular clock analysis of a large dataset (159 proteins, 85 taxa) using 19 fossil calibrations. We show that for major eukaryote groups estimated dates of divergence, as well as their credible intervals, are heavily influenced by the relaxed molecular clock models and methods used, and by the nature and treatment of fossil calibrations. Whereas the estimated age of LECA varied widely, ranging from 1007 (943-1102) Ma to 1898 (1655-2094) Ma, all analyses suggested that the eukaryotic supergroups subsequently diverged rapidly (i.e., within 300 Ma of LECA). The extreme variability of these and previously published analyses preclude definitive conclusions regarding the age of major eukaryote clades at this time. As more reliable fossil data on eukaryotes from the Proterozoic become available and improvements are made in relaxed molecular clock modeling, we may be able to date the age of extant eukaryotes more precisely.
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