Many evolutionary analyses depend upon robust and systematically classified species trees. Genome-based species trees are now the gold standard and our ability to rapidly and inexpensively sequence genomes means that the tree of life is filling in at an unprecedented rate. This is particularly true of the microbial world that is now readily accessible via metagenomics. However, there are justifiable concerns about the quality of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) and how much noise they may be introducing into evolutionary analyses. This coupled with poor reference taxonomies means that we may have a way to go before we have a robust and systematically classified species tree. Once in place, we can then begin to address questions such as how many extant taxa remain to be unearthed on a global scale.

The talk is part of the Computational Approaches to Early Evolution Workshop (April 20-24, 2026)