A lot happened in the hundreds of millions years separating the first and last eukaryotic common ancestors, but when and how most features arose remains a mystery.
The discovery that a group of cell-infecting bacteria lived roughly 2 billion years ago stirs a longstanding controversy around which came first: phagocytosis or mitochondria.
Phylogenomics data place the enigmatic plankton in the middle of the algal family tree, despite their apparent lack of plastids—an organelle characteristic of all other algae.
Rather than introducing small chunks of DNA as other viruses do, some giant viruses can contribute more than 1 million base pairs to a host’s genome, broadening the ways in which viruses may shape eukaryote evolution.
In the largest microbial eukaryote genetic sequencing effort ever attempted, researchers are investigating the transcriptomes of 700 marine algae species.