Figure 2.

Old and new views of the evolution of prokaryote genomes. (A) 20^th Century biologists sometimes assumed a close congruence between gene history and species history. Horizontal gene transfer was assumed to be uncommon, as the process of genes entering a new genome is counter to the idea of a sleek and well adapted genome. (B) After analyzing the genomes of many prokaryotes, biologists recognized that horizontal gene transfer may be a common event. Furthermore, prokaryote species trees may be viewed as a patchwork of gene trees with varying levels of congruence. A similarly hierarchical view of eukaryote evolution has been articulated by Maddison [15], except that differential coalescent times – usually not horizontal transfer – is the primary mechanism used to explain incongruence of gene and species trees.