Branching order of bacterial phyla (Ciccarelli et al., 2006)
Okay kiddo, so you know how there are different kinds of bacteria, like the ones that make you sick or the ones that help you digest food? Well, scientists want to understand how all these bacteria are related to each other, sort of like making a family tree.
So they look at their DNA, which is like a set of instructions that tells the bacteria how to grow and do things. Scientists can compare the DNA of different bacteria and see which parts are similar and which parts are different.
Now, imagine you're trying to group all your toys together. You might put all your stuffed animals in one pile, your cars and trucks in another pile, and your puzzles in a different pile. Scientists do something similar with the bacteria, grouping together the ones that have similar DNA.
But there's more! Scientists also want to know which bacteria evolved first and which ones came later, kind of like figuring out which members of your family are older or younger than you. To do this, they look at how much the DNA sequence has changed over time.
It's kind of like playing a game of spot-the-difference with two pictures. If there are only a few differences between the two pictures, it means they are more closely related. But if there are a lot of differences, it means they evolved separately for a long time.
So, Ciccarelli et al. (2006) did this for a whole bunch of bacteria and found out which ones evolved first and which ones came later. They made a family tree of sorts, with different branches representing different groups of bacteria that evolved together.
It's kind of like a family tree for all the bacteria in the world!
So they look at their DNA, which is like a set of instructions that tells the bacteria how to grow and do things. Scientists can compare the DNA of different bacteria and see which parts are similar and which parts are different.
Now, imagine you're trying to group all your toys together. You might put all your stuffed animals in one pile, your cars and trucks in another pile, and your puzzles in a different pile. Scientists do something similar with the bacteria, grouping together the ones that have similar DNA.
But there's more! Scientists also want to know which bacteria evolved first and which ones came later, kind of like figuring out which members of your family are older or younger than you. To do this, they look at how much the DNA sequence has changed over time.
It's kind of like playing a game of spot-the-difference with two pictures. If there are only a few differences between the two pictures, it means they are more closely related. But if there are a lot of differences, it means they evolved separately for a long time.
So, Ciccarelli et al. (2006) did this for a whole bunch of bacteria and found out which ones evolved first and which ones came later. They made a family tree of sorts, with different branches representing different groups of bacteria that evolved together.
It's kind of like a family tree for all the bacteria in the world!