Scientists discover organism that hasn't evolved in more than 2 billion years

[shawn001]

Scientists discover organism that hasn't evolved in more than 2 billion years

"The greatest absence of evolution ever reported has been discovered by an international group of scientists: a type of deep-sea microorganism that appears not to have evolved over more than 2 billion years. But the researchers say that the organisms' lack of evolution actually supports Charles Darwin's theory of evolution."

Scientists discover organism that hasn't evolved in more than 2 billion years -- ScienceDaily

 

[Nietzsche]

...extremely ancient sea-beast, found at the very deepest depths of the ocean?

I expected Godzilla to be bigger if I'm honest.

 

[outhouse]

I thought the cyanobacteria I have growing goes back over 3 billion.

 

[shawn001]

I thought the cyanobacteria I have growing goes back over 3 billion.

This isn't about the oldest and there were bacteria before cyanobacteria that did not use photosynthesis.

as Far as I know this maybe one of if not the oldest. Although there is information on cyanobacteria at 3.5, but they may have changed the dates on it not sure. So good questions. I know they found ones that didn't need oxygen. So will have to look into it more.

The oldest microfossils ever found were discovered in a 3.4 billion-year-old sandstone at the base of Strelley Pool in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia.

"Earth had no oxygen at the time the bacteria existed."

Oldest Fossil on Earth Found : Discovery News


This is interesting too, the oldest living still. Some revived.

Oldest living organism

 

[shawn001]

There is this too from 2013.

"The ecosystems that generated Earth’s oldest stromatolites also produced other types of what biogeochemist Nora Noffke of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., calls microbially induced sedimentary structures or MISS. “These structures represent an entire ecosystem of surprising diversity,” she says. They may even rival stromatolites with fossils dating back 3.49 billion years."

World's Oldest Fossils Found in Australia : Discovery News

 

[outhouse]

There is this too from 2013.

"The ecosystems that generated Earth’s oldest stromatolites also produced other types of what biogeochemist Nora Noffke of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., calls microbially induced sedimentary structures or MISS. “These structures represent an entire ecosystem of surprising diversity,” she says. They may even rival stromatolites with fossils dating back 3.49 billion years."

World's Oldest Fossils Found in Australia : Discovery News

Which have been labeled as Cyano stromatolites

 

[outhouse]

"Earth had no oxygen at the time the bacteria existed."

Yep.

Cyano was anaerobic as well.


Not arguing, adding to your post more then anything

 

[Etritonakin]

wait wait wait wait........ newb here
what about random mutations, etc. etc.....?

They find things which are "indistinguishable"???

Do they not necessarily randomly mutate?

Is their relationship to their environment so specific that no mutations survive -and if not, where are the non-survivors?

If there are no random mutations among them at all, how might they evolve unless mutation is caused by environment?

It says that
"If they were in an environment that did not change but they nevertheless evolved, that would have shown that our understanding of Darwinian evolution was seriously flawed."
but certainly there would be some mutations which also survived, even if they did not evolve much. Would there not be?

Not every mutation is a life or death change, right?

I get that the bacteria are more simple than apes, for example, but even if the environment of apes remained unchanged, would we not still see random mutations passed on?
If so...
Does not evolution move sideways, so to speak? Why can't things evolve by random mutation into different species which are eventually unrecognizable compared to the original, but equally fit to survive?

We find fish that have not evolved -living fossils, or whatever -but why would they not have mutated at all? Are all mutations passed on within a group -and only the survivors remain -or should we expect that random mutation will change every species over time regardless of environment? If that fish is a mutation of something else over time, why did random mutation stop? Did it? Why would one line randomly mutate -and not another?

Maybe environment initially caused mutations -which eventually caused random mutation to become internalized, but not always present?

If environment is credited with causing life in the first place -as environment existed before earthly life existed within it -that seems reasonable.

Perhaps random mutation is a mutation which is not passed on to all?

My head hurts.

I need to read up on this stuff.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Does not evolution move sideways, so to speak? Why can't things evolve by random mutation into different species which are eventually unrecognizable compared to the original, but equally fit to survive?

As I understand it, this microorganism is so well-adapted to it's environment that any mutations would have been less well adapted and therefore not flourished. And the environment has remained stable.

As the article says: "These microorganisms are well-adapted to their simple, very stable physical and biological environment," he said. "If they were in an environment that did not change but they nevertheless evolved, that would have shown that our understanding of Darwinian evolution was seriously flawed."

 

[Ouroboros]

Not every mutation is a life or death change, right?

I get that the bacteria are more simple than apes, for example, but even if the environment of apes remained unchanged, would we not still see random mutations passed on?
If so...
Does not evolution move sideways, so to speak? Why can't things evolve by random mutation into different species which are eventually unrecognizable compared to the original, but equally fit to survive?

The answer is, Yes!

Sharks is a good example (and humans to some degree). Sharks has not changed much, but they have a huge variety of genetic variation (that is mostly neutral), because the species reached a peak in their environmental niche where there isn't much more space to move to success. They're top of their environment, so to speak. And what happens then is that you get a lot of synonymous codons (codons that are slightly different but produce the same peptides), or analogous genes that produce same/similar proteins that do the same job.

 

[Etritonakin]

As I understand it, this microorganism is so well-adapted to it's environment that any mutations would have been less well adapted and therefore not flourished. And the environment has remained stable.

As the article says: "These microorganisms are well-adapted to their simple, very stable physical and biological environment," he said. "If they were in an environment that did not change but they nevertheless evolved, that would have shown that our understanding of Darwinian evolution was seriously flawed."

Should there not be evidence of at least some mutated bacteria among the group -even if they did not survive?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Should there not be evidence of at least some mutated bacteria among the group -even if they did not survive?

Good question. I don't think the article goes into that level of detail. Maybe the mutated ones weren't suited to the local environment and moved to a different area? I'm not sure how they judge the level of mutation with a microorganism, it must be quite challenging - presumably slight variations would be difficult to notice with such a tiny life form?

 

[Etritonakin]

Good question. I don't think the article goes into that level of detail. Maybe the mutated ones weren't suited to the local environment and moved to a different area? I'm not sure how they judge the level of mutation with a microorganism, it must be quite challenging - presumably slight variations would be difficult to notice with such a tiny life form?

Sounds reasonable

 

[outhouse]

Should there not be evidence of at least some mutated bacteria among the group -even if they did not survive?

The original bacteria so successful, it did not evolve, but other species did in fact evolve from it.

Evolution is not a ladder.

It is a more like a tree or bush, just because there is a branch, does not mean the first species has to fail.


Like wolf's and dogs. We still have wolfs, despite dogs branching from them.

 

[Ouroboros]

It is a more like a tree or bush, just because there is a branch, does not mean the first species has to fail.

Or like paths going down a hill. The problem with the bush or tree analogy is that it doesn't show hybridization. The branches in the evolutionary tree not only diverge, but occasionally merge back again. Two compatible species produce a hybrid offspring.

For programmers who know object oriented programming, it's like multiple inheritance.

 

[Parsimony]

Despite their lack of phenotypic change, I'd wager that their DNA sequence is rather different from their ancient ancestors due to neutral point mutations.

 

[Ouroboros]

Despite their lack of phenotypic change, I'd wager that their DNA sequence is rather different from their ancient ancestors due to neutral point mutations.

I concur. The synonymous codons are aplenty. I think there's about 3 different codons producing the same peptide, but I would have to find a table to verify that. If I'm right, it would mean that in a gene of 5 codons, there are potentially 3^5 (243) variations of the same gene, producing the same protein.