Re:What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life
by toolslive on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @06:47AM
(#18714992)
No it's not a tree. It's more like a graph.
Some branches split and merge again later. Species are not well defined neither (or, if you prefer, there are plenty of competing definitions)
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life
by BurningFrog on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @12:08PM
(#18717161)
What's an example of species merging?
Re:What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life
by matt4077 on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @12:20PM
(#18717301)
They really don't, at least not in a way where their genomes would mix in equal parts, or be concatenated.
The closest to merging is probably mitochondria, which probably were single-cell creatures ingested by some very early (single-celled) ancestor of us and, instead of being devoured, ended up in a symbiotic relationship within its host. The mitochondria to this day have their own genome and function a lot like a cell-within-a-cell. Same for plants and photosynthesis.