ESSAY

NATURE|Vol 435|26 May 2005

The great chain of being

Our persistence in placing ourselves at the top of the Great Chain of Being suggests we have some
deep psychological need to see ourselves as the culmination of creation.
Changes in ocean ecosystems wrought
by Bacteria and Archaea contributed to
the deposition of the ocean sediments, an
For centuries the great chain of being held
event of enormous significance: these seda central place in Western thought. This
iments became the habitat for bacteria that
view saw the Universe as ordered in a linnow constitute about one-third of the total
ear sequence starting from the inanimate
living biomass today. (A side-effect of the
world of rocks. Plants came next, then anideposition is the oxygenation of the
mals, men, angels and, finally, God. It was
atmosphere by photosynthetic bacteria.)
very detailed with, for example, a ranking
Evolution continued for bilof human races; humans themlions of years, with many remarkselves ranked above apes above
Human
able innovations stimulated by
reptiles above amphibians above
both cooperation and conflict.
fish. This view even predicted a
Ape
For example, Bacteria evolved the
world of invisible life in between
capacity to communicate chemithe inanimate and the visible, livReptile
cally to coordinate attacks on othing world, long before Antonie
ers, and a willingness to commit
van Leeuwenhoeks discoveries.
Amphibian
suicide for the greater good of the
Although advocates of evolution
community. Around a billion
may have stripped it of its superFish
years ago, a great experiment
natural summit, this view is with
occurred: Bacteria and Archaea
us still.
Amphibian
came together in a fusion event to
Common presentations of evosynthesize a whole new domain
lution mirror the great chain by
Reptile
of life, the Eukarya. Sadly, the outviewing the process as progrescome was rather uninteresting:
sive. For example, in their book
Ape
the resulting organisms displayed
The Major Transitions in Evolua very limited metabolic repertion, John Maynard Smith and
Human
toire and much restricted habitat
Eors Szathmry take us from the
requirements.
origin of life, through to the origin
Fish
Over the past 600 million years
of eukaryotic cells, multicellularthe Bacteria, Archaea and microity, human societies and, finally, of
language. They explicitly point Although both representations are equally valid, we instinctively bial Eukarya have continued to
out that evolution does not neces- position ourselves at the top of phylogenetic trees (upper panel). evolve into brand new niches. As
it happens, a few branches of
sarily lead to progress, and even
refer to the great chain by its Latin name, about it in this way, suggesting, instead, Eukarya plants and animals grew
scala naturae. But it is impossible to over- that we have some deep psychological need freakishly huge bodies. They also created
look the fact that the major evolutionary to see ourselves as the culmination of cre- both new substances for bacteria to
transitions lead inexorably, step by step, to ation. Illustrating this, when we represent exploit, such as plant lignins, and new
us. Similarly, in their recent essay in Nature, the relationships between species, includ- environments for microbes to inhabit,
Climbing the co-evolution ladder (431, ing ourselves, in a family tree, we automat- such as feathers and urinary tracts. Indeed,
913; 2004), Lenton and colleagues illustrate ically construct it so that the column of some of the richest and most interesting
their summary of lifeenvironment inter- species names forms a chain with us as the ecologies on Earth can be found inside the
actions through the ages with a ladder top, as in the first of the trees pictured. But animal gut.
One of the huge species, Homo sapiens,
whose rungs progress through microbes, the other construction is equally valid.
Here is another view of evolution, but got remarkably self-important. But when,
plants, and, at the top, large animals.
In his recent book The Ancestors Tale, this time from the point of view of microbes to his surprise, a virus wiped him out, most
Richard Dawkins reverses the usual tempo- the main form of life on our planet. From of life on Earth took no notice at all.

ral perspective and looks progressively fur- the mists of time, nearly 4 billion years Sean Nee is at the Institute of Evolutionary
ther back in time to find our ancestors. Like ago, three great domains of life emerged: Biology, School of Biological Sciences,
Maynard Smith and Szathmry, he cautions Bacteria, Archaea, and the molecular University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road,
us against thinking that evolution is pro- parasites of these, such as viruses. Over Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK.
gressive, culminating with us. He empha- hundreds of millions of years the Bacteria
FURTHER READING
sizes that with whatever organism we begin evolved an extraordinary variety of bio- Lovejoy, A. O. The Great Chain of Being (Harper and
the pilgrimage back through time, we all are chemical capabilities, including the ability Row, New York, 1965).
reunited at the origin of life. But by begin- to generate light, and to eat and breathe Gee, H. Nature 420, 611 (2002).
ning the journey with us and looking metals. The Archaea also evolved remark- Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmry, E. The Major Transitions
Evolution (W. H. Freeman & Co., Oxford, 1995).
backwards along our ancestry, Dawkins able capacities to thrive in every environ- of
Dawkins, R. The Ancestors Tale (Weidenfeld &
generates a sequence of chapter titles ment available, including superheated, Nicolson, New York, 2004).
Nee, S. Nature 429, 804805 (2004).
that would read like a typical chain to a pressurized water deep in the oceans.

Sean Nee

medieval theologian, albeit with some novelties and the startling omission of God.
By starting with us, Dawkins regenerates
the chain because species that are more
closely related to us are more similar as
well, and such similarity was an important
criterion in determining the rankings in
the classical chain. But there is nothing
about the world that compels us to think

2005 Nature Publishing Group

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