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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 September 2017
The timing of emergence of major organismal groups is consistent with the climatic temperature being equal to their upper temperature limit of growth (Tmax), implying a temperature constraint on the evolution of each group, with the climatic temperature inferred from the oxygen isotope record of marine cherts. Support for this constraint comes from the correlation of Tmax with the rRNA molecular phylogenetic distance from the last common ancestor (LCA) for both thermophilic Archaea and Bacteria. In particular, this correlation for hyperthermophilic Archaea suggests a climatic temperature of about 120°C at the time of the LCA, likely in the Hadean.