Idea or model
Three domains of life
Comparing ribosomal RNA divides life into three domains: Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya.
Common ancestry
All known cellular life is thought to descend from a last universal common ancestor. Researchers infer its features from genes shared across life, and the details are still debated.Source: Weiss et al., 2016Source: Moody et al., 2024
Also called LUCA.
Idea or model
How Common ancestry connects
Common ancestry describes
Common ancestry is part of
Process
Evolution
The process by which living things change over generations through changes in their genomes.
Studied in
Your progress
Sources & further reading
The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.
The physiology and habitat of the last universal common ancestor (opens the original in a new tab)
Weiss MC, Sousa FL, Mrnjavac N, et al. (2016). Nature Microbiology 1:16116.
Peer-reviewedPrimary researchThe nature of the last universal common ancestor and its impact on the early Earth system (opens the original in a new tab)
Moody ERR, Álvarez-Carretero S, Mahendrarajah TA, et al. (2024). Nature Ecology & Evolution 8:1654-1666.
Peer-reviewedPrimary research