Cited by 75Protist diversity and phylogenyOrigins and Evolution of LifeGenomics and Phylogenetic Studies

Evolution: Two Domains of Life or Three?

Open access
Doolittle, W. Ford·2020·Current Biology

Abstract

That Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya (eukaryotes) represent three separate domains of Life, no one having evolved from within any other, has been taken as fact for three decades. Recent work shows this to be untrue. Eukarya arose from well within Archaea and are specifically related to newly discovered archaeal species with eukaryote-like features.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cub.2020.01.010

Cites

19 of 19 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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Cites

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Stanier, 1970, Some aspects of the biology of cells and their possible evolutionary significance, Symp. Soc. Gen. Microbiol., 20, 1

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Authors
Doolittle, W. F.
Affiliations
Dalhousie University (CA)
Corresponding author
Doolittle, W. Ford
Venue
Current Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-02
Volume
30
Issue
4
Pages
R177-R179
ISSN
0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3007830711
Cited by
75
References
19
Citations by year
2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3
FWCI
4.56
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Current Biology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protist diversity and phylogeny
  • Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
Keywords
eukaryotic origin, archaea, bacteria, eukaryotes
MeSH terms
Archaea, Bacteria, Biological Evolution, Phylogeny, Eukaryota

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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Classified by jev-1.13-20260917 (gold-guideline-v0.2) on 2026-10-20.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

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