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Encyclopedia of Geobiology pp 64–69Cite as

Archaea

  • Reference work entry

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Synonyms

Archaebacteria (term abandoned)

Definition

The Archaea are single-celled or filamentous prokaryotes that constitute the third phylogenetic domain of life, besides the Bacteria and the Eukarya. The word “Archaea” (singular archaeum, archaeon) is derived from the Greek word for “the old ones”.

History

The discovery of the Archaea dates back to 1976 when Carl Woese, at his laboratory at Illinois University, compared prokaryotic small subunit ribosomal RNA sequences using oligonucleotide catalogs (Woese, 2007). Woese recognized Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum as the first member of a fundamentally distinct group of prokaryotes that clustered away from all other bacteria. Consequently, Woese and Fox (1977) established the concept of two separate prokaryotic “urkingdoms ,” Eubacteria and Archaebacteria. Later, the term “Archaebacteria” was changed to “Archaea” to emphasize the fundamental differences between both groups. Based on these discoveries, Woese and...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geobiology Group Geoscience Center, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstr. 3, 37077, Göttingen, Germany

    Dr. Volker Thiel (Prof.)

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    Joachim Reitner  & Volker Thiel  & 

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Thiel, V. (2011). Archaea. In: Reitner, J., Thiel, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geobiology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_11

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