Indeed, archaea and bacteria appear very similar ... of diverse life-forms to construct and compare thousands of phylogenetic trees for individual genes. Unexpectedly, when comparing these trees ...

According to this latest study, all complex life forms (a.k.a. eukaryotes) trace their roots back to a common ancestor among a group of microbes called the Asgard archaea.

Since the late 1980s, all life forms have been split into three groups on the phylogenetic tree of life: bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes. Eukaryotes and archaea have long been considered “sister ...

(A) The unrooted three-domain tree derived by phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA and other information-processing genes. (B) The rooted three-domain tree. (C) The network of life. A: archaea; B ...

Scientists propose that the eukaryotic branch of this family tree formed when two prokaryotes ... systems to study the distribution of complete systems in the genomes of archaea, including Asgard ...