A report has just come out about scientists finding a “missing link” between Arc

Question

A report has just come out about scientists finding a “missing link” between Archaea and Eukaryotes. You have learned that they are different domains but there are a number of evolutionary events that had to occur for eukaryotes to develop from Achaea ancestors. Modern day Archaea and Eukaryotes have some significant differences but scientist have been looking to find molecular, structural and genetic links between the groups to help explain how eukaryotes could have evolved. Scientist have found a modern day Archaea that posses traits that help to fill in the link between archae and eukaryotes. Your assignment is to find information about this recent report and answer the questions below.

What is the main difference between Archaea and Eukaryotes?

What is the name of the archaea that was recently shown to have indicators of a link between eukaryotes and prokaryotes?

In what type of environment was the archae found?

Describe the specific types of evidence that researchers say indicates a “missing link” between archaea and eukarotes

Why do scientists think that it is more likely to find a link between archaea and eukaryotes, than bacteria and eukaryotes?

Explanation / Answer

Archaea has cell wall while Eukaryote dont have cell wall.

Named Lokiarchaeota -- Loki for short -- the tiny organism is single-celled, but more like a multicelled organism than any ever found before. Scientists are calling it the missing link between single cells and complex life.

It was found below the Atalantic ocean.

Loki represents an intermediate form in-between the simple cells of microbes, and the complex cell types of eukaryotes.  Loki shares many genes uniquely with eukaryotes, suggesting that cellular complexity emerged in an early stage in the evolution of eukaryotes.

Eukaryotic genomes are a mixture of genes from distinct origins. Some are very similar to bacterial genes because they indeed have a bacterial origin. They were transferred to Eukaryotes from the bacterium that was engulfed by an early Eukaryote and eventually became the mitochondria (organelle responsible for energy production inside cells). But after comparing the similarity in conserved genes among the Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya, studies found that they were more similar between Eukarya and subgroups of Archaea (TACK). This supports the archaeal-host hypothesis , in which important genes in the nucleus came from the host that gave rise to the Eukaryotic lineage.

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