Abstract

The origin of eukaryotic cells – complex cells with a nucleus and mitochondrion, shared by all of the most familiar forms of life – has long been a fascinating and hotly debated topic in evolutionary biology. While the debate has raged for decades, there have been some interesting recent and semi-recent developments in the field, driven both by the discovery of new, evolutionarily-relevant lineages in nature, and by the development of new computational methods for inferring evolutionary history from genomes. In this talk, I will give a brief historical overview of some aspects of the debate, and discuss recent developments in the field, both from my lab and the broader community. I will attempt to address where eukaryotes branch in the tree of life, identify the main genetic contributors to the first eukaryotic cells, and establish the sequence of key events during the evolution of eukaryotic cell complexity from (at least ultrastructurally) simpler prokaryotic starting points. Although I will primarily peddle my own wares, I will try to take a broader perspective such that the seminar may also be of some interest to non-specialists who are curious about evolution in deep time.