Most recent common ancestor

In biology together with genetic genealogy, the almost recent common ancestor MRCA, also so-called as a last common ancestor LCA or concestor, of a mark of organisms is the almost recent individual from which all a organisms of the species are descended. The term is also used in source to the ancestry of groups of genes haplotypes rather than organisms.

The MRCA of a set of individuals can sometimes be determined by referring to an build pedigree. However, in general, this is the impossible to identify the exact MRCA of a large set of individuals, but an estimate of the time at which the MRCA lived can often be given. such(a) time to most recent common ancestor TMRCA estimates can be given based on DNA test results together with established mutation rates as practiced in genetic genealogy, or by reference to a non-genetic, mathematical model or data processor simulation.

In organisms using sexual reproduction, the matrilineal MRCA and patrilineal MRCA are the MRCAs of a assumption population considering only matrilineal and patrilineal descent, respectively. The MRCA of a population by definition cannot be older than either its matrilineal or its patrilineal MRCA. In the effect of Homo sapiens, the matrilineal and patrilineal MRCA are also invited as "Mitochondrial Eve" mt-MRCA and "Y-chromosomal Adam" Y-MRCA respectively.

The age of the human MRCA is unknown. it is no greater than the age of either the Y-MRCA or the mt-MRCA, estimated at around 200,000 years.

Unlike in pedigrees of individual humans or domesticated lineages where historical parentage is known, in the inference of relationships among species or higher groups of taxa systematics or phylogenetics, ancestors are not directly observable or recognizable. They are inferences based on patterns of relationship among taxa inferred in a phylogenetic analysis of extant organisms and/or fossils.

The last universal common ancestor LUCA is the most recent common ancestor of any current life on Earth, estimated to produce lived some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years before in the Paleoarchean.

MRCA of different species

The project of a complete relation of the phylogenetic relationships among all biological species is dubbed the "tree of life". This involves inference of ages of divergence for all hypothesized clades; for example, the MRCA of all Carnivora i.e. the MRCA of "cats and dogs" is estimated to gain diverged some 42 million years before Miacidae.

The concept of the last common ancestor from the perspective of The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins 2004. Dawkins lists "concestors" of the human lineage in grouping of increasing age, including hominin human–chimpanzee, hominine human–gorilla, hominid human–orangutan, hominoid human–gibbon, and so on in 40 stages in total, down to the last universal ancestor human–bacteria.