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all 48 comments

[–]dumnezero 9 points10 points ago

do you have this in larger size?

[–]REALLYANNOYING[S] 1 point2 points ago

Nice find, I wish I had this one, sorry guys.

[–]MUDrummer 1 point2 points ago

Ladies and gentlemen...we have found our new desktop background!

[–]HighBees 7 points8 points ago

Looks like we are due for a mass extinction shortly.

[–]skimania 1 point2 points ago

yeah, maybe in the next few million years or so. my children will definitely still be alive.

[–]Italian_Barrel_Roll 1 point2 points ago

I'm pretty sure we're propagating that right now.

[–]ProjectMeat 12 points13 points ago

As a eukaryotic phylogeneticist, I have to say this tree really exaggerates the size and importance of the clade of animals compared to all other life on Earth. Animals in this photo range from Sponges (next to Fungi) to the very end of the spectrum at Mammals. I am glad there is the mention of this cartoon being from "the human point of view", but I really think people should understand just how small and pitiful animals are compared to the diversity of life out there. And none of it has evidence of being created by a deity that cares about only 1 species of what is estimated to be 10-100 million species on this planet.

Here is a link to a 2005 paper by PJ Keeling showing just the tree of Eukaryotes (excludes Bacteria and Archaea) as best as could be defined in that year. There is now more data from more species and more genetic information is being sequenced every day. That means this tree now has more resolution than is shown, but you will still get the same point. This maintains the general idea of where animals, plants, and fungi really sit in the tree.

EDIT: Animals are in the bottom right, among the "Unikonts". I have higher resolution images I can upload if people have a hard time reading this one I found on the web.

[–]Greasy_Doug 1 point2 points ago

I came here to make this point (well almost) My main complaint as a student of microbiology is that Archea and Bacteria are both far more diverse than Eukaryota, we just tend to show the smaller separations and groups in Eukaryota so that we may individually identify ourselves in a tree depicting "all known life".

You put it much better than I would have so I thank you for this.

[–]ProjectMeat 0 points1 point ago

It is true that Bacteria and Archaea are likely much larger than Eukaryota in current thoughts of what a species is, but that may change in the future. Current research in taxonomy is working to define what a species is in a uniform concept across all life. Since bacteria do have sex, they do not fit the Biological Species Concept (BSC), and since they have horizontal gene transfer between completely unrelated 'species' that may mean that they group together as 'species' in much larger groups and completely new ways than originally thought!

It's an exciting time in biology. :D geeks out

[–]Greasy_Doug 1 point2 points ago

I thought something like this when researching diversity, it seems that they enjoy splitting Bacteria and Archea into very small taxonomic groups. Thank you for the insight about this possible change, I will be sure to read up on it. If you have the time a source would be greatly appreciated :P

[–]ProjectMeat 0 points1 point ago

I have a few papers at the lab, but I can't recall the names right now. I'll try to post them on Monday when I go back. Sorry for forgetting. XP

[–]Greasy_Doug 0 points1 point ago

No worries I have resources to look at but was just intrigued to a specific journal or paper regarding this research.

[–]Ragnalypse -1 points0 points ago

TIL the "importance" of a group on a tree is represented by how much space they take up.

I take it fat people are really important IRL?

[–]ProjectMeat 0 points1 point ago

To a true biologist, it does not mean importance, but to the general populous it does. I'm making the claim that I want the average joe to understand how small we are in the grand picture of life.

[–]geomouse -1 points0 points ago

Did you miss the part that said "This Tree of Life is drawn from the human point of view... A Tree of Life drawn from a bacterial point of view would look very different" ?

[–]ProjectMeat 0 points1 point ago

No, I didn't. That's why I quoted it in my comment. Please read the whole thing before making comments.

[–]geomouse 0 points1 point ago

My mistake I meant did you misunderstand. You left out the whole rest of the quote and worded your comment in way easily interpreted as criticism of it for not being what it didn’t claim to be.

[–]ProjectMeat 0 points1 point ago

I apologize if I was vague. The figure is a very good one, but it's very relative. When the authors speak of using the human point of view, to laymen that suggests that it's organized in a way to let us see taxa closely related to us. However, as a fellow taxonomist, it really is saying that humans are to the right side for ease of location and nothing more. My beef with the figure is that the more distant you travel in shared ancestry from humans, the less and less the authors show in the figure in regards to clade size. The problem lies in that several of these clades are far larger than not just Mammalia, but also all of Animalia, so the representation is skewed.

My original point is very specific in its scope, so I don't imagine too many people would care beyond other phylogeneticists. I hope this clears things up. :)

[–]mtldude1967 16 points17 points ago

I prefer this one, because it's easy to understand and supports my beliefs.

[–]Haneesh716 4 points5 points ago

I DID NOT EVOLVE FROM OCEAN RUST YE DAMN DEVIL-WORSHIPPERS

[–]EvOllj 2 points3 points ago

.svg

[–]Metsubo 1 point2 points ago

Seconded

[–]RexArcana 2 points3 points ago

When fundies tell me I worship Darwin, I'm going to get all offended and inform them that I actually follow Alfred Russel Wallace's theory of evolution. We're like the muslim atheists.

[–]Wargall 1 point2 points ago

The most evil kind!

[–]RexArcana 1 point2 points ago

IT'S A THEORY OF PEACE!!!

[–]Tybob51 1 point2 points ago

Beautiful chart

[–]iQuoteU 1 point2 points ago

this post was really interesting, thanks for posting :)

[–]Philile 0 points1 point ago

[–]c00yt825 0 points1 point ago

I love this image.

[–]j-natta 0 points1 point ago

Simply amazing!

[–]banjopaige 0 points1 point ago

awesome, thanks for sharing.

[–]Fausto1981 0 points1 point ago

this is beautiful, i bookmarked it so i can read it later when i have enough time!

[–]Peter89 0 points1 point ago

where do viruses come into play?

[–]inheresytruth 0 points1 point ago

Uh, does anyone else look at this and think, "Man, based on the spacing of the last 5, it looks like we're about due for another Mass Extinction".

[–]redditopus 0 points1 point ago

What are the dark brown eukaryotes before the plants?

This tree of life isn't completely accurate.

And CORALS? What about OTHER CNIDARIANS ?

[–]ThePlasmid 0 points1 point ago

I don't like this tree. It does not acknowledge horizontal gene transfer.

[–]frankfort 0 points1 point ago

Looks like we're due for a mass extinction.

[–]SweetKarma 0 points1 point ago

What does this have to do with atheism?

[–]Oblimix 0 points1 point ago

Eukaryotes really went to town.

[–]PeanutDynamite 0 points1 point ago

Anyone have the citation to the paper? Love to get a copy of it.

[–]Pyromaniac605 0 points1 point ago

I never knew there's been so many mass extinctions...

[–]AccidentalFlashbang 0 points1 point ago

Ocean's Rust???

I'm not saying it's wrong (because I honestly don't know) but up until now I was under the impression the beginning came from proteins that were mutated by the sun's radiation, and then the blue green algae (the mutated proteins) helped create the atmosphere which kerbed the sun's radiation and set us on a nice slow path of natural selection.

I'm not nitpicking I just want to hear this ocean's rust theory, as I have not heard it yet.

[–]Deako87 0 points1 point ago

What a fantastic chart! Now thats way more beautiful then the idea of creation.

[–]milkyjoe241 0 points1 point ago

the Bacteria chunk of that tree is not large enough.

[–]agnomengunt -1 points0 points ago

I just have to complain that Eukaryotes are way overrepresented in this figure. Bacteria and Archaea make up an enormous majority of life on this planet

[–]badpenguin455 -4 points-3 points ago

give it 4 billion more years and we will evolve back to bacteria!