2017/08/14 by Patricia Sánchez‐Baracaldo, John A. Raven, Davide Pisani +1 · 3 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Protist diversity and phylogeny #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.1620089114
openalex publication_date 2017/08/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Significance Although it is widely accepted that the chrloroplasts in photosynthetic eukaryotes can be traced back to a single cyanobacterial ancestor, the nature of that ancestor remains debated. Chloroplasts have been proposed to derive from either early- or late-branching cyanobacterial lineages, and similarly, the timing and ecological setting of this event remain uncertain. Phylogenomic and Bayesian relaxed molecular clock analyses show that the chloroplast lineage branched deep within the cyanobacterial tree of life ∼2.1 billion y ago, and ancestral trait reconstruction places this event in low-salinity environments. The chloroplast took another 200 My to become established, with most extant groups originating much later. Our analyses help to illuminate the little known evolutionary history of early life on land.