Science Memes

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Evolution isn't linear. (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The discovery of horizontal gene transfer implies that it's more like a web than a tree.

"Biologist Johann Peter Gogarten suggests "the original metaphor of a tree no longer fits the data from recent genome research" therefore "biologists should use the metaphor of a mosaic to describe the different histories combined in individual genomes and use the metaphor of a net to visualize the rich exchange and cooperative effects of HGT among microbes".

I look forward to this dinosaur = chicken colloquialism being inevitably discarded.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

How is horizontal gene transfer between microbes in any way relevant to a discussion about the ancestry of chickens that only reaches back to the dinosauria clade? Chickens are invariably a sub-group of the bigger group dinosaurs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Not just microbes. HGT has been observed in carnivorous plants as well. It could be much more prevalent than we think.

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