The successful colonization of new habitats has played a fundamental role during the evolution of life. Salinity is one of the strongest barriers for organisms to cross, which has resulted in the evolution of distinct marine and non-marine (including bot
The flowering plant tree of life has enormous potential for biodiversity research. This is because, just as one can predict the properties of an element based on its position in the periodic table, the location of a species in the tree of life allows researchers to predict its properties. The...
“While the main goals of this large-scale project were to understand the relationships of all flowering plant genera, it also sheds light on the timing of major events in the evolution of complex flower forms and life histories,” Dr. Michelangeli said. “Large analyses such as this can pro...
A small set of genes (the universal genetic core of life) might show a (mostly) coherent evolutionary trend that transcends the entire history of cellular life forms. However, it might not be useful to denote this trend the tree of life, or organismal, or species tree because neither ...
Human-driven extinction threatens entire lineages across the Tree of Life. Here we assess the conservation status of jawed vertebrate evolutionary history, using three policy-relevant approaches. First, we calculate an index of threat to overall evolutio
A major threat to our understanding of the Tree of Life is, of course, extinction, the loss of species. Extinction is a normal part of the history of life on Earth. Fossils of extinct organisms abound throughout the geologic timescale of life on our planet. It is estimated that over the...
Life is a chemical reaction. Three major transitions in early evolution are considered without recourse to a tree of life. The origin of prokaryotes required a steady supply of energy and electrons, probably in the form of molecular hydrogen stemming fro
The tree of life represents an evolutionary heritage providing both present and future benefits to humanity, often in unanticipated ways. Returning to the themes for this special issue, we can say that losses in this evolutionary ³life-support system´ represent losses in current and future ...
23 of 50 White-on-White Christmas Tree The retro white Christmas tree has returned! Go for an all-white artificial tree and stick to only silver and white Christmas tree decorations. If you aren't quite ready to go all the way with this trend, purchase a mini white Christmas tree ins...
Tree growth trends can affect the interpretation of the response of tree-ring proxies (especially tree-ring width) to climate in the low-frequency band, wh