The nature of the last universal common ancestor and its impact on the early Earth system

Moody, Edmund R. R.; Álvarez-Carretero, Sandra; Mahendrarajah, Tara; Clark, James; Betts, Holly C.; Dombrowski, Nina; Szánthó, Lénárd L.; Boyle, Richard A.; Daines, Stuart J.; Chen, Xi; Lane, Nick; Yang, Ziheng; Shields, Graham; Szöllősi, Gergely J.; Spang, Anja; Pisani, Davide; Williams, Tom A.; Lenton, Timothy M.; Donoghue, Philip C. J.

doi:10.1038/s41559-024-02461-1

articleNature Ecology & EvolutionJul 12, 2024HYBRID OA

The nature of the last universal common ancestor and its impact on the early Earth system

EREdmund R. R. Moody SÁSandra Álvarez-Carretero TMTara Mahendrarajah JCJames Clark HCHolly C. Betts

At Bristol · University of Bristol · +9 more institutions

PubMed

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Abstract

The nature of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), its age and its impact on the Earth system have been the subject of vigorous debate across diverse disciplines, often based on disparate data and methods. Age estimates for LUCA are usually based on the fossil record, varying with every reinterpretation. The nature of LUCA's metabolism has proven equally contentious, with some attributing all core metabolisms to LUCA, whereas others reconstruct a simpler life form dependent on geochemistry. Here we infer that LUCA lived ~4.2 Ga (4.09-4.33 Ga) through divergence time analysis of pre-LUCA gene duplicates, calibrated using microbial fossils and isotope records under a new cross-bracing implementation.…

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Topics

Keywords

Prokaryote
Abiogenesis
Evolutionary biology
Biology
Ancestor
Genome
Tree of life (biology)
Early Earth

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Life in Land

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