A paper in Nature proposes a new evolutionary scenario that helps to better understand the evolution of our phylum and to discover what the ancestor of tunicates—the sister group of vertebrates—were like. Specifically, it reveals that the massive gene losses which deconstructed the gene network in the heart of tunicates eased the transition to a free pelagic lifestyle in appendicularian tunicates from their ancestral sessile lifestyle.
Click here for original story, Deciphering the impact of gene loss on biological evolution
Source: Phys.org