Common descent

In evolutionary biology, a group of organisms have common descent if they have a common ancestor. There is strong support for the theory that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor.^[1][2]

Charles Darwin proposed the theory of universal common descent through an evolutionary process in On the Origin of Species, saying, "There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one".^[3]p490

The last universal ancestor (LUA) (or last universal common ancestor, LUCA), is the most recent common ancestor of all currently living organisms.^[1] It is believed to have appeared about 3.9 billion years ago.^[4][5]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Cite error: The named reference theobald was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
2. ↑ Steel, Mike; Penny, David (2010). "Origins of life: common ancestry put to the test". Nature. 465 (7295): 168–9. Bibcode:2010Natur.465..168S. doi:10.1038/465168a. PMID 20463725. S2CID 205055573.
3. ↑ Darwin, Charles; Costa, James T. 2009. The Annotated Origin: a facsimile of the first edition of On the Origin of Species, annotated by James T. Costa. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University. ISBN 978-0-674-03281-1
4. ↑ Doolittle, W.F (February 2000). "Uprooting the tree of life" (PDF). Scientific American. 282 (6): 90–95. Bibcode:2000SciAm.282b..90D. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0200-90. PMID 10710791. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-09-07. Retrieved 2011-06-21.
5. ↑ Glansdorff, N; Xu, Y; Labedan, B (2008). "The last universal common ancestor: emergence, constitution and genetic legacy of an elusive forerunner". Biology Direct. 3 (1): 29. doi:10.1186/1745-6150-3-29. PMC 2478661. PMID 18613974.