New Primordial Protozoan Species Is Not in Any Known Kingdom of Life

By Rebecca Boyle Posted 04.30.2012 at 12:06 pm 13 Comments

New Life Form This strange protozoan has four flagella. The rest of the entire tree of life is divided by organisms that have either one or two flagella. UiO/MERG

A tiny microorganism found in Norwegian lake sludge may be related to the very oldest life forms on this planet, a possible modern cousin of our earliest common ancestor. It is not a fungus, alga, parasite, plant or animal, yet it has features associated with other kingdoms of life. It could be a founding member of the newest kingdom on the tree of life, scientists said.

Life on Earth is divided into two main groups, the prokaryotes and the eukaryotes. Prokaryotes are simple life forms, with no membranes or cell nuclei; this group includes bacteria and archaea. Eukaryotes, which include humans, animals, plants, fungi and algae, have cell membranes and nuclei. This new organism is a eukaryote.

More specifically, it’s an algae-eating protozoan, a type of creature that have been known to science since the Civil War but which have lacked genetic studies because they’re difficult to culture. Researchers in Norway were able to harvest them from a lake bed and breed them in the lab. This one is called Collodictyon.

Researchers led by Kamran Shalchian-Tabrizi, head of the Microbial Evolution Research Group (MERG) at the University of Oslo, were examining the species’ genes and morphological makeup and found it is not like anything else. It evolved a billion years ago, give or take a couple hundred million years. It could have been living the same way since then, providing scientists a glimpse of what the earliest life forms looked like.

The organism is weird in several key ways. It has four flagella, for instance, which makes it different from bacteria and eukaryotes. Mammals, fungi and amoebae only have one flagellum — that’s the propeller-like feature that helps cells move (think of the “tail” of a sperm cell). Algae, plants and single-celled parasites called excavates are thought to have had two flagella. Collodictyon is somewhere between an excavate and an amoeba.

Also, the organism has the same internal structure as a parasite, but it uses amoeba-like protuberances to catch its food, which are blue-green algae. So again, it combines features from two branches of the eukaryotes, further evidence that it’s a primordial creature, the researchers say.

Even at its highest levels, the tree of life is mutable — the domain archaea was only recognized in 1990. So it wouldn’t be out of the question for this organism to spark an entirely new kingdom. The research on Collodictyon is published in the journal Molecular Biology Evolution.

[Science Daily]

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13 Comments

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zeggman

04/30/12 at 1:50 pm

Mammals and fungi have "only one flagellum"? I would have put the number somewhat lower...

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felixwazlib

04/30/12 at 2:10 pm

@zeggman mammalian sperm has flagella and fungi spores have flagella too so it's only the reproductive cells of mammals and fungi

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kdaviper

04/30/12 at 3:52 pm

When you think of it, every human starts out as both an egg and a sperm. Basically two unicellular organisms which undergo binary fusion and go through millions of years worth of evolutionary changes in just 9 months.

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Robot

04/30/12 at 6:30 pm

I started out being a twinkle in someone's eye. ;)

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

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Sat

04/30/12 at 7:25 pm

@kdaviper

A zygote will divide via mitosis (the division of the nucleus, which eukaryotic cells like a zygote possesses) and cytokinesis (division of the cytoplasm), not binary fission (which occurs only in prokaryotes like bacteria and archean), although both are forms of asexual reproduction.

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Sat

04/30/12 at 7:34 pm

I'm also wondering if there are undiscovered viruses that infect these species.

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Patrikd

05/01/12 at 7:11 pm

This *press release* is so screwed up it's not even funny. Absolutely groan-inducing.

I could rant on about shoddy reporting and science-by-press-release. But Jonathan Eisen is better at ranting and already covered the main points here:

http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com/2012/04/twisted-tree-of-life-award-13-press.html

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cfwest86

05/03/12 at 3:45 am

"It is not a fungus, alga, parasite, plant or animal, yet it has features associated with other kingdoms of life."

I was unaware parasites were classified as a kingdom. Very interesting

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Redfreak84

05/03/12 at 7:53 am

reminds me of the game Spore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoP5thatpr4

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vmaldia

05/04/12 at 9:58 am

archaea have distinct genetic differences. I think these will too

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doitbetternow

05/04/12 at 6:14 pm

Robot

04/30/12 at 6:30 pm

I started out being a twinkle in someone's eye. ;)
---------------------------

What happened? ;)

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Robot

05/05/12 at 11:00 am

doitbetternow,
Well, the twinkle was an invitation to spark a fire of which two separate chemical identities came together and made a union, spawning a new mass. The new mass became self sustaining, but additional parts and chemical infusions with added to my complex mixture and to enhance my continued growth. I continued to grow from my parental nurturing and eventual reach independent self sustaining robotic maturity. I now exist independent from my original paternal chemical inspired identities.

I hope one day to find that twinkle in the eye for myself and continue the perpetual process of spawning a new mass.

Ah, the amazing power and properties of the "twinkle in the eye"! It is most inspiring! ;)

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

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poxdoc

05/06/12 at 7:31 pm

Sat, what an awesome question! There are almost certainly a whole ost of new viruses associated with this new form of life, just as we see in extremophilic environments such as hotsprings. In these areas we have found whole new ecosystems of bacteria and bacteriophages never before seen. And there are certainly many more yet to be discovered. What an exciting time!

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