[Conservative Texan Mom]

Just wondering, what is the simplest life form that is able to be linked to the chain of evolution thus far?
Thanks

[highball]

Just wondering, what is the simplest life form that is able to be linked to the chain of evolution thus far?

Thanks

Human evolution? I don't know. I'm not a scientist, strictly an interested amateur.

Perhaps one of the scientists here can answer that. The best I could do is a Google search, which you could well do yourself.

[ahayes]

Just wondering, what is the simplest life form that is able to be linked to the chain of evolution thus far?

The prokaryotes (single-celled organisms without membrane-bound organelles), kingdoms Eubacteria and Archaea. These at one point had a common ancestor but it is lost. Eukaryotes (organisms with membrane-bound organelles) are thought to have evolved through some type of symbiotic arrangement between bacteria and archaebacteria. The simplest version involves an archaebacterium engulfing an bacterium, the bacterium lives inside the host and provides oxygen scavenging, hydrogen, or some other benefit. Over time many genes on the engulfed bacterium's genome become transferred to the nucleus (there are varying theories about how that arose too), new genes arise, and eventually we get the modern eukaryotes with mitochondria.

Support for this idea includes the fact that eukaryotes like us share many metabolic enzymes with bacteria, but our mechanisms for gene transcription and translation are more like the archaebacteria's.