From neonts to filionts and their progenies...

Biodiversity draws its origins from the origins of life itself

Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité (ISYEB - UMR 7205 – CNRS, MNHN, UPMC, EPHE), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, 45 rue Buffon, CP. 50, 75005 Paris, France

^a Corresponding author: marie-christine.maurel@upmc.fr

Abstract

Since the origins, different modes of life exist. Indeed it is difficult to imagine how things could have been constructed by a single event that would have marked the birth of life. A brief historical background of the subject will be presented here. Then, we shall wander through the history of the discoveries that have led the way of experimental science over the last 150 years and shall dwell on one of the major paradigms, that of the RNA World. This paradigm illustrates the path followed by the living that tries all possible means when expressed at the molecular level as simple free molecule leading to RNA fragments and to modern subviral particles such as viroids then to ramifications and compartments. Between the ancient and the modern RNA world we underline how environment talks to molecules leading to the global living tissus which establish the ground of biodiversity.