Microbes Monthly - May
The Tree of Life
The “Tree of Life” has been redesigned!
What is the tree of life? The tree of life was first developed by a large number of scientists, including Carl Woese, to categorize all living organisms and their relative genomic similarity to one another.
Fast forward to 2016: a large group of scientists have evaluated a lot of unknown microbiological species from samples obtained in different environments. After evaluating vast amounts of genomic data, they were able to redefine the tree of life. Not a surprise: bacterial species make up the majority of the branches of the tree of life.
Sources: http://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol201648 http://www.nytimes.com/…/scientists-unveil-new-tree-of-life…