Microbial Phylogeny and Evolution: Concepts and Controversies

Abstract

I remember finding the Science magazine with the illustrations from the Haemophilus influenzae genome paper on the cover (Fleischmann et al., 1995) in the library during my undergraduate project work. It was an exciting time: in the molecular evolution class we had learned that most questions and controversies regarding microbial evolution and phylogeny could be answered, if only we had enough sequence data. A little over 10 years have passed since this first complete bacterial genome was published, and what have we learned in that time? This is where Microbial Phylogeny and Evolution: Concepts and Controversies tries to fit in.