ReviewCurrent biology : CB2017
Embracing Uncertainty in Reconstructing Early Animal Evolution.
Review in Current biology : CB, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- The Origin and Early Evolution of Fungi: Challenges, Inferences, and Principles.Annual review of cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- The evolutionary foundations of transcriptional regulation in animals.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2025Review
- The Buds of Oscarella lobularis (Porifera, Homoscleromorpha): A New Convenient Model for Sponge Cell and Evolutionary Developmental Biology.Journal of experimental zoology. Part B, Molecular and developmental evolution · 2024Article
- A taxon-rich and genome-scale phylogeny of Opisthokonta.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Article
- The promise and pitfalls of synteny in phylogenomics.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Putative past, present, and future spatial distributions of deep-sea coral and sponge microbiomes revealed by predictive models.ISME communications · 2024Article
- Stable Laboratory Culture System for the Ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Incongruence in the phylogenomics era.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2023Review
- An RFX transcription factor regulates ciliogenesis in the closest living relatives of animals.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- Confusion will be my epitaph: genome-scale discordance stifles phylogenetic resolution of Holothuroidea.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Body-Plan Reorganization in a Sponge Correlates with Microbiome Change.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Highly Dynamic Gene Family Evolution Suggests Changing Roles for PON Genes Within Metazoa.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Germline-related molecular phenotype in Metazoa: conservation and innovation highlighted by comparative transcriptomics.EvoDevo · 2023Article
- First putative occurrence in the fossil record of choanoflagellates, the sister group of Metazoa.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Improving Orthologous Signal and Model Fit in Datasets Addressing the Root of the Animal Phylogeny.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Metazoans and Intrinsic Apoptosis: An Evolutionary Analysis of the Bcl-2 Family.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Rooting the Animal Tree of Life.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Phylogenomic Subsampling and the Search for Phylogenetically Reliable Loci.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The origin of animals, one of the major transitions in evolution, remains mysterious. Many key aspects of animal evolution can be reconstructed by comparing living species within a robust phylogenetic framework. However, uncertainty remains regarding the evolutionary relationships between two ancient animal lineages - sponges and ctenophores - and the remaining animal phyla. Comparative morphology and some phylogenomic analyses support the view that sponges represent the sister lineage to the rest of the animals, while other phylogenomic analyses support ctenophores, a phylum of carnivorous, gelatinous marine organisms, as the sister lineage. Here, we explore why different studies yield different answers and discuss the implications of the two alternative hypotheses for understanding the origin of animals. Reconstruction of ancient evolutionary radiations is devilishly difficult and will likely require broader sampling of sponge and ctenophore genomes, improved analytical strategies and critical analyses of the phylogenetic distribution and molecular mechanisms underlying apparently conserved traits. Rather than staking out positions in favor of the ctenophores-sister or the sponges-sister hypothesis, we submit that research programs aimed at understanding the biology of the first animals should instead embrace the uncertainty surrounding early animal evolution in their experimental designs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.