This year the commission is co-sponsoring a day workshop entitled,

Dating the Tree of Life

25 September 2006

Department of Zoology and Animal Biology University of Geneva, and 3me cycle romand en sciences biologiques.

Everybody is welcome!

The COL Symposium 2005 was held in Zurich in conjunction with the Swiss Geosciences Meeting, 18-19 November 2005 on:

"Biogeoscience: Is there a future for genomics in geology?"

Conveners: D. Ariztegui, Judith A. McKenzie and C. Vasconcelos.
COL (Commission for Oceanography and limnology), Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT)

Do geoscientists need phylogeny? In the mid-1970's, Carl Woese postulated a new classification of life using ribosomal RNA molecules. He separated life into 3 domains (Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya) and built phylogenetic trees, which can serve as DNA-derived widows into the past. Our knowledge of Earth's earliest life and the environment in which it evolved remain controversial subjects due to the lack of Precambrian fossil evidence. Genomics offers a new tool for geoscientists to study evolution in deep time. Using an evolutionary chronometer that relates modern prokaryotes to distant ancestors, geoscientists can define the distinct metabolism of these ancestors and obtain information which links the evolution of life and its influence on the evolution of the Earth's environment. Further, increasing our knowledge of prokaryotic ancestors and their metabolisms may, in turn, tell us about the environment in which eukaryotes arose and the conditions which facilitated their evolution.

Invited keynote speakers addressed the application of genomics to frontier research topics in the geosciences. The event also included poster presentations.

» Meeting Website