Figure 1

The position of Dictyostelium in eukaryotic phylogeny. Whole-proteome comparisons of Dictyostelium and representatives of a variety of other groups, rooted on a number of archaeal species, were used to generate this phylogenetic tree (modified from Eichinger et al. [1]). Dictyostelium diverges from the animal line shortly after the plants and shortly before fungi and yeasts. In many respects Dictyostelium is closer to animals than are the fungi, because of the greater rate of divergence of the fungal lineage.