Fascinating Professor. I have never seen the evolutionary tree for bacteria, but say, does it represent ALL known types? Or just the ones under discussion? Where's gonorrhea, streptococcus, nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria, etc. on the tree? I was under the impression that cyanobacteria had been assigned their own separate kingdom.
They seem to have omitted most of the Proteobacteria for which 16S sequences are known, probably because there are so many. But those would include the organisms you mention.
I was under the impression that cyanobacteria had been assigned their own separate kingdom.
The paper suggests an origin of kaiB 2300 million years ago. That would be after the cyanobacteria diverged from the others, which don't have kaiB. So the cyanobacteria have had a separate lineage for around 2.5 by, which is old enough to give them a kingdom, IMHO.