A natural system of organisms

@article{Mayr1990ANS,
  title={A natural system of organisms},
  author={Ernst Mayr},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1990},
  volume={348},
  pages={491-491}
}
  • E. Mayr
  • Published 1 December 1990
  • Biology
  • Nature
View on Nature
39 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
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Background Citations
10
Results Citations
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39 Citations

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This essay discusses Carl Woese's vision of evolution, one which transcends population genetics, and which has ramifications not only for the understanding of the origin of life on Earth and elsewhere, but also for the authors' understanding of biology as a novel class of complex dynamical systems.

2 What Is a Prokaryote

The Singular Quest for a Universal Tree of Life

Carl Woese developed a unique research program, based on rRNA, for discerning bacterial relationships and constructing a universal tree of life and brought together diverse evidence to support the rRNA evidence for the fundamentally tripartite nature of life.

Eubacteria, and Eukaryotes Relationships among Archaebacteria, Sequences: A Reappraisal of Evolutionary Protein Phylogenies and Signature

Ernst Mayr, the tree of life, and philosophy of biology

It is shown how Mayrian evolutionary biology excludes numerous forms of life and many important evolutionary processes, and an alternative to this dichotomy is a multidimensional continuum in which different strategies of genetic exchange bestow greater adaptiveness and evolvability on prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Construction and deconstruction: The influence of lateral gene transfer on the evolution of the Tree of Life

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References

SHOWING 1-2 OF 2 REFERENCES

On the Broad Classification of Organisms

A system of broad classification which recognized a plant kingdom of four divisions and an animal kingdom of ten to fifteen phyla was for many years stable and standardized. Significant changes have…

Towards a natural system of organisms: proposal for the domains Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya.

It is proposed that a formal system of organisms be established in which above the level of kingdom there exists a new taxon called a "domain." Life on this planet would be seen as comprising three domains, the Bacteria, the Archaea, and the Eucarya, each containing two or more kingdoms.