Microbial Phylogeny and Evolution: Concepts and ControversiesThe birth of bacterial genomics in the mid 1990s brought with it several conceptual modifications and wholly new controversies. Working beyond the scope of the neo Darwinian evolutionary synthesis, a group of leading microbial evolutionists addresses the following and related issues, often with markedly varied viewpoints: Did the eukaryotic nucleus, cytoskeleton, and cilia also originate from symbiosis? Do the current scenarios about the origin of