ReviewInterface focus2020
Insights into eukaryogenesis from the fossil record.
Review in Interface focus, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Early fossil eukaryotes were benthic aerobes.Nature · 2026Article
- Eukaryogenesis From FECA to LECA: Radical Steps Along the Way.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2025Review
- A diverse Palaeoproterozoic microbial ecosystem implies early eukaryogenesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Genes Encoding Intracellular Signaling Proteins in Animals Originated Along with Metazoa and Chordata: Chance or Necessity?Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- A shallow-water oxygen minimum zone in an oligotrophic Tonian basin.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Deciphering Molecular Mechanisms and Diversity of Plant Holobiont Bacteria: Microhabitats, Community Ecology, and Nutrient Acquisition.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Proterozoic microfossils continue to provide new insights into the rise of complex eukaryotic life.Royal Society open science · 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
- Foraging mechanisms in excavate flagellates shed light on the functional ecology of early eukaryotes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Cryogenian Origins of Multicellularity in Archaeplastida.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- 1.63-billion-year-old multicellular eukaryotes from the Chuanlinggou Formation in North China.Science advances · 2024Article
- Constraining the oxygen requirements for modern microbial eukaryote diversity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
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- Tonian carbonaceous compressions indicate that Horodyskia is one of the oldest multicellular and coenocytic macro-organisms.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Nitrate limitation in early Neoproterozoic oceans delayed the ecological rise of eukaryotes.Science advances · 2023Article
- The Ancestral Mitotic State: Closed Orthomitosis With Intranuclear Spindles in the Syncytial Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor.Genome biology and evolution · 2023Article
- The elements of life: A biocentric tour of the periodic table.Advances in microbial physiology · 2023Article
- A case for an active eukaryotic marine biosphere during the Proterozoic era.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed 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, implying that eukaryogenesis can be studied using the fossil record. I review the proxy records of four crown group characters: the capacity to form cysts as evidenced by the presence of excystment structures; a complex cytoskeleton as evidenced by spines or pylomes; sterol synthesis as evidenced by steranes; and aerobic respiration-and therefore mitochondria-as evidenced by eukaryotes living in oxic environments, and argue that it might be possible to use these proxy records to infer the order in which these characters evolved. The records indicate that both cyst formation and a complex cytoskeleton appeared by late Paleoproterozoic time, and sterol synthesis appeared in the late Mesoproterozioc or early Neoproterozoic. The origin of aerobic respiration cannot as easily be pinned down, but current evidence permits the possibility that it evolved sometime in the Mesoproterozoic.
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