UT-ORNL research reveals aquatic bacteria more recent move to land

EurekaAlert
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
12-22-2011

Research by University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists has discovered that bacteria's move from sea to land may have occurred much later than thought
Research by University of Tennessee, Knoxville, faculty has discovered that bacteria's move from sea to land may have occurred much later than thought. It also has revealed that the bacteria may be especially useful in bioenergy research.

Igor Jouline, UT-Oak Ridge National Laboratory joint faculty professor of microbiology and researcher at ORNL's Joint Institute for Computational Sciences, performed a genome sequence analysis of the soil bacteria Azospirillum, a species' whose forbearers made the sea-to-land move. The analysis indicates the shift may have occurred only 400 million years ago, rather than approximately two billion years earlier as originally thought.

Read more