Over 1,000 New Species Added To The Tree Of Life

Recently, scientists from the University of California (UC), Berkeley added more than 1,000 new species discovered in recent years to the tree of life. They include Archaea, a kingdom of single-celled microorganisms, which show the abundance of life and biodiversity invisible to the human eye.

"The tree of life is one of the most important organizing principles in biology," said Jill Banfield, a professor at UC Berkeley. "The new depiction will be of use not only to biologists who study microbial ecology but also biochemists searching for novel genes and researchers studying evolution and earth's history."

The microbial diversity was discovered due to the scientists being able to directly search for genomes in the environment, as against culturing them in a lab dish. Most of these genomes cannot be cultured, as they cannot live on their own. Hence, it is a genome revolution that helps us to get an insight into the numerous Archaea that would not have otherwise been found.

"Bacteria and Archaea from major lineages completely lacking isolated representatives comprise the majority of life's diversity," said Banfield. "This is the first three-domain genome-based tree to incorporate these uncultivable organisms, and it reveals the vast scope of as yet little-known lineages."

These new organisms have been sourced from a number of environments including Yellowstone National Park, Chile's Atacama Desert and even the inside of a dolphin's mouth! They were discovered just through their genomes.

"What became really apparent on the tree is that so much of the diversity is coming from lineages for which we really only have genome sequences," said Laura Hug, first author of the study and a member of the biology faculty at the University of Waterloo. "We don't have laboratory access to them, we have only their blueprints and their metabolic potential from their genome sequences. This is telling, in terms of how we think about the diversity of life on Earth, and what we think we know about microbiology."

The new tree gives some insights into the history of organisms, even though many mysteries remain unsolved.

"This incredible diversity means that there are a mind-boggling number of organisms that we are just beginning to explore; the inner workings of that could change our understanding of biology," said Brett Baker, co-author of the study and a researcher from the University of Texas.

The findings were published in the April 11 issue of Nature Microbiology.