Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History Archives

All cellular life is related by an unbroken chain of cell divisions. Species phylogenies describe the relationship between populations. Populations are themselves a description of the genealogical relationships between individuals. Peering even closer reveals that each individual consists of a lineage of cells, connected to other individuals via reproductive cells. Therefore, species trees, genealogies, and cell lineages are all descriptions of the same concept—the tree of life—but at different scales. Gene trees and cell trees (i.e., cellular phylogenies) describe the evolutionary histories of specific characters within the tree of life. These trees may be discordant with species trees due to duplication, loss, and incomplete sorting in populations. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002633.g004

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Integrating Phylogenies Into Single-cell RNA Sequencing Analysis Allows Comparisons Across Species, Genes, And Cells

by Keith CowingJune 3, 2024

Abstract: Comparisons of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data across species can reveal links between cellular gene expression and the evolution of cell functions, features, and phenotypes. These comparisons evoke evolutionary […]

The openVertebrate project was a five-year initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to make 3D models of museum specimens freely available to scientists, students, teachers and the public. CREDIT openVertebrate

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openVertebrate Project: Open Access CT Scans To Thousands Of Natural History Specimens

by Keith CowingMay 13, 2024May 14, 2024

Editor’s note: When we begin to study the variety iof life forms on other worlds we’ll need to have a way to catalog what we have discovered, make an image […]

Strelitzia is a genus of five species of perennial plants, native to South Africa. It belongs to the plant family Strelitziaceae. A common name of the genus is bird of paradise flower/plant, because of a resemblance of its flowers to birds-of-paradise. In South Africa, it is commonly known as a crane flower. -- Wikipedia

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Earth Life Biodiversity: Vast DNA Tree Of life For Flowering Plants Revealed

by Keith CowingApril 25, 2024April 25, 2024

The most up-to-date understanding of the flowering plant tree of life is presented in a new study published today in the journal Nature by an international team of 279 scientists, […]

Primnoid corals observed during Dive 677 along a transect on the eastern flank of an unexplored and unregistered seamount within the national jurisdiction of Chile, east of Motu Motiro Hiva, an uninhabited island. The seamount also lies within the Motu Motiro Hiva Marine Park. The dive started at ~900 m depth and went upslope to the summit ~230 m. This seamount is located near the western-central extent of the Salas y Gómez Ridge.

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Pristine Ecosystems And A Hundred New Lifeforms Discovered Remote Seamounts

by Keith CowingApril 16, 2024April 16, 2024

An international team of scientists observed 160 species on the Salas y Gómez Ridge that had not yet been known to live in the region and suspect that at least […]

An octopus documented during Dive 674, an exploration transect on the southeastern flank of an unexplored and unnamed seamount located within the national jurisdiction of Chile, east of Motu Motiro Hiva, an uninhabited island along the Salas y Gómez Ridge. The dive started at ~800 m depth and traveled upslope to ~270 m. This island is located near the western-central extent of the Salas y Gómez Ridge. CREDIT ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute

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Salas y Gómez Ridge Seamount Away Team Expedition Discovers 50 New Life Forms

by Keith CowingApril 12, 2024

International team co-led by a BSC researcher discovers more than 50 new deep-sea species in one of the most unexplored areas of the planet.

Neural network training of varKodes for species identification. (A) Effect of k-mer length and data amount used to produce varKodes on validation accuracy. Longer k-mers increase accuracy when more data are used. Mixing varKodes subsampled from different amounts of data improves accuracy. Box with dashed line (k-mer length = 7) strikes a good balance between model accuracy and amount of required data. (B) Validation accuracy improves with increased number of training samples per species, but even 3–4 samples are sufficient in most cases for achieving high accuracy. Each solid line represents one sample, colored by DNA quality (i.e., variation in base pair frequencies). Higher rank indicates better quality. Dashed lines represent averages across all samples. -- ecoevorxiv.org

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Getting Ready For Offworld Astrobiology Expeditions: A Universal DNA Barcode For The Tree Of Life

by Keith CowingFebruary 7, 2024February 7, 2024

Editor’s note: According to this study “Species identification using DNA barcodes has revolutionized biodiversity sciences and society at large.“ When we start to explore inhabited worlds we’re going to have […]

A portion of Earth's global ocean -- NASA

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Documenting Life On Our Water Planet: The Global Ocean Gene Catalog 1.0

by Keith CowingJanuary 22, 2024February 16, 2024

Editor’s note: we will soon begin to explore the oceans of Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, and other worlds in our solar system – and eventually, worlds circling other stars. We’ll be […]

Number of true genera (blue) vs. the number of genera identified by seven clustering algorithms, for each environment category in the Temperature Dataset (left), respectively the pH Dataset (right). Only true genera that are represented by more than two sequences in the respective dataset (Temperature or pH) are considered, and only clusters meeting the quality criteria are counted. -- Scientific Reports

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New Dimensions Of Extremophile Genomes Discovered

by Keith CowingJanuary 12, 2024January 12, 2024

It has long been thought that an organism’s DNA provides clues only about its ancestry and how the various forms of life on Earth are related – the more similar […]

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Environment And Taxonomy Shape The Genomic Signature Of Prokaryotic Extremophiles

by Keith CowingDecember 28, 2023December 28, 2023

This study provides comprehensive quantitative evidence suggesting that adaptations to extreme temperatures and pH imprint a discernible environmental component in the genomic signature of microbial extremophiles.

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These Away Teams Are Building The Largest Knowledge Graph Of Life On Earth

by Keith CowingDecember 4, 2023September 18, 2025

Editor’s note: As we search for life on other worlds via orbital and surface surveys, it is useful to use Earth and its diverse biota on land, sea, and air, […]