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Life originated as single-celled prokaryotes and later evolved into the more complex eukaryotes. In contrast to prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells are highly organised. Prokaryotes are the bacteria and archaea, while eukaryotes are the other life forms — protists, plants, fungi and animals.
The tree of life. Two domains of life are Bacteria (top branches) and Archaea (bottom branches, including eukaryotes). The two-domain system is a biological classification by which all organisms in the tree of life are classified into two domains, Bacteria and Archaea.
Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (/ ˌ ɑːr k i b æ k ˈ t ɪər i ə /, in the Archaebacteria kingdom), but this term has fallen out of use. [5] Archaeal cells have unique properties separating them from Bacteria and Eukaryota. Archaea are further divided into multiple recognized phyla.
The cellular components of prokaryotes are not enclosed in membranes within the cytoplasm, like eukaryotic organelles.Bacteria have microcompartments, quasi-organelles enclosed in protein shells such as encapsulin protein cages, [4] [5] while both bacteria and some archaea have gas vesicles.
Archaea are prokaryotic unicellular organisms, and form the first domain of life in Carl Woese's three-domain system. A prokaryote is defined as having no cell nucleus or other membrane bound-organelle. Archaea share this defining feature with the bacteria with which they were once grouped.
However, this approach is most successful for organisms that had hard body parts, such as shells, bones or teeth. Further, as prokaryotes such as bacteria and archaea share a limited set of common morphologies, their fossils do not provide information on their ancestry. Prokaryotes inhabited the Earth from approximately 3–4 billion years ago.
The three-domain system adds a level of classification (the domains) "above" the kingdoms present in the previously used five- or six-kingdom systems.This classification system recognizes the fundamental divide between the two prokaryotic groups, insofar as Archaea appear to be more closely related to eukaryotes than they are to other prokaryotes – bacteria-like organisms with no cell nucleus.
For the Prokaryotes (Bacteria and Archaea) the rank kingdom has not been used till 2024 [115] (although some authors referred to phyla as kingdoms [73]). The category of kingdom was included into the Bacteriological Code in November 2023, [ 116 ] the first four proposals ( Bacillati , Fusobacteriati , Pseudomonadati , Thermotogati ) were ...