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SNAKES AND LADDERS. "Given the fractions of conserved and lineage-specific genes in modern archaeal genomes, this translates into approximately 2,500 genes in the ancestral genome, which is a larger genome than most of the extant archaea possess. The reconstructed pattern of gene loss and gain in archaea is non-trivial: there seems to have been some net gene gain at the base of each of the major archaeal branches that was almost invariably followed by substantial gene loss...this could be a general pattern of genome evolution." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

DEATH AS AN ADAPTATION TO LIFE. "Instead of imagining death as the antithesis of life, death must be appreciated as an evolving part of life and an adaptation to life." https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/275814 View in LinkedIn

ANOTHER EXEMPLAR. "The most compelling evidence of the dominance of genome reduction and simplification was obtained through the reconstruction of the genomic evolution of archaea that almost exclusively are free-living organisms. The latest ML reconstruction based on a comparative analysis of 120 archaeal genomes traced between 1,400 and 1,800 gene families to the last common ancestor of the extant archaea." (ML = maximum likelihood methods). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

CONSTRAINTS ON REDUCTIONS. "Certainly, the evolution of the genomes of parasites, symbionts and commensals is not a one-way path of reduction. On the contrary, the reduction ratchet is constrained by the advantages of retaining certain metabolic pathways that complement the host metabolism." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

TWO METHODS. "Genome reduction apparently occurs in two distinct and distinguishable manners, i.e. either via a neutral ratchet of genetic material loss or by adaptive genome streamlining." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

NEW VIEW. "Contrary to widespread and perhaps intuitively plausible opinion, genome reduction is a dominant mode of evolution that is more common than genome complexification, at least with respect to the time allotted to these two evolutionary regimes." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

INCREASING COMPLEXITY. "The biphasic model of evolution...is not all-encompassing as continuous, long-term increase in genome complexity (but not necessarily biological information density) is observed in various lineages, our own history (that is, evolution of vertebrates) being an excellent case in point."" " https://lnkd.in/egqWFZp http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

TWO PHASES. "The first, innovative phase of evolution is temporally brief, engenders dramatic genomic and phenotypic perturbations, and is linked to population bottlenecks. The second, reductive phase that represents “evolution as usual” is protracted in time, is facilitated by the deletion bias that seems to be a general feature of genome evolution." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

CLOCKS AND BURSTS. "The findings that in many if not most lineages evolution is dominated by gene (and more generally, DNA) loss that occurs in a roughly clock-like manner whereas gene gain occurs in bursts associated with the emergence of major new groups of organisms imply a biphasic model of evolution." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

MORE EQUAL PARTNER. "Simplification could be an “an equal partner to complexification” in the evolution of eukaryotes. The latest reconstruction results suggest that simplification could be even “more equal” than complexification." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn