in the 1990s, Lake focused on the bilateral animals, and recognised that there were questions over the placement of the lophophorate animals, such as bryozoans, phoronids, and brachiopods. Lake provided clear DNA-based evidence indicating that the lophophorates were not deuterostomes as had been widely believed. In fact, they were most closely related to the mollusc – annelid clade. The result of this research was the creation of a new super-phylum, the Lophotrochozoa containing molluscs, annelids, lophophorates, and other animals. Lake recognised that long branch attraction was a severe problem for the mostly rapidly evolving nematodes and was able to provide rDNA sequences from a number of slowly evolving nematodes in order to bypass this difficulty. This sampling showed that the moulting animals form a clade, called the Ecdysozoa, a second protostomian superphylum sister to the Lophotrochozoa. Endosymbiosis research Lake also explored concepts concerning the deep phylogenetic origins of the eukaryotic cell. In the eocyte hypothesis, Lake and colleagues proposed that eukaryotes (animals, fungi, plants, and protists) evolved from a specific group of thermophilic prokaryotes, the "eocyte" archaebacteria. References External links 1941 births Living people University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni People from Kearney, Nebraska 21st-century American biologists Evolutionary biologists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Symbiogenesis researchers