Analysis Suggests Habitat, Lifestyle for Last Universal Common Ancestor

Abstract

The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) apparently was a thermophilic, anaerobic, nitrogen-fixing microorganism, according to William F. Martin from the Institute of Molecular Evolution at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf, in Dusseldorf, Germany, and his collaborators. Their findings support the theory of an autotrophic origin of life involving the Wood–Ljungdahl pathway in a hydrothermal setting. Details appeared July 25, 2016 in Nature Microbiology (doi:10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.116).