Study Finds Oxygen-Using Ancestors, Solving Complex Life Mystery

A break in a longstanding mystery about origin of complex life

According to a new study in Nature, some Asgard archaea use, or at least tolerate oxygen.

Solving a longstanding mystery about complex life's origin—oxygen-tolerant Asgard archaea may explain eukaryotes' rise

The most widely accepted scientific explanation for the arrival of all complex life on Earth has had an unsolved mystery at its heart. According to the theory, all plants, animals and fungi, known collectively as eukaryotes, are thought to have evolved after two very different types of microbes came together. The problem was in figuring out how the two were in such close proximity in the first place, given that one of the microbes requires oxyge…

Earth’s early oceans hid the secret rise of complex life

Scientists have discovered that complex life began evolving much earlier than traditional models suggested. Using an expanded molecular clock approach, the team showed that crucial cellular features emerged in ancient anoxic oceans long before oxygen became a major part of Earth’s atmosphere. Their results indicate that early complexity developed slowly over an unexpectedly long timescale.

Oxygen May Have Been Key to Sparking the Rise of Complex Life

Learn how oxygen’s early rise could have given complex life the energy boost it needed to evolve.

Deep-Sea Microbes Reveal How Complex Life Began

A surge of oxygen on ancient Earth may have ignited the rise of complex life.

Oxygen metabolism in descendants of the archaeal-eukaryotic ancestor

Asgard archaea were pivotal in the origin of complex cellular life1. Heimdallarchaeia (a class within the phylum Asgardarchaeota) are inferred to be the closest relatives of eukaryotes. Limited sampling of these archaea constrains our understanding of their ecology and evolution2,3, including their role in eukaryogenesis. Here we use massive DNA sequencing of marine sediments to obtain 404 Asgardarchaeota metagenome-assembled genomes, including 1