Consensus phylogeny ofDictyostelium

The evolutionary relationship ofDictyostelium discoideum to the yeasts, fungi, plants, and animals is considered on the basis of physiological, morphological and molecular characteristics. Previous analyses of five proteins indicated thatDictyostelium diverged after the yeasts but before the metazoan radiation. However, analyses of the small ribosomal subunit RNA indicated divergence prior to the yeasts. We have extended the molecular phylogenetic analyses to six more proteins and find consistent evidence for a more recent common ancestor with metazoans than yeast. A consensus phylogeny generated from these new results by both distance matrix and parsimony analyses establishesDictyostelum's place in evolution between the yeastsSaccharomyces cerevisiae andSchizzosaccharomyces pombe and the wormCaenorhabditis elegans.