XVI International Botanical Congess

Our understanding of the origin and evolution of eukaryotes is based to a large extent on molecular phylogeny, particularly that of ribosomal RNAs. Recently the wide taxonomic sampling of other genes has allowed comparisons of several different molecular trees. Many features of these phylogenies agree with ribosomal RNA, but many others strongly disagree. These discrepancies have revealed some very interesting and unexpected evolutionary events and relationships. They have also undermined our concept of ancient eukaryotes by demonstrating that many apparently ancient lineages are not so old after all. It is clear that a single molecule is insufficient to understand eukaryotic phylogeny, but a consensus of the strongly-supported features of many molecular trees does begin to reveal an outline of relationships that may be more accurate than any one gene tree.