Figure 5.

The human genome as a mosaic and an ecosystem. Everything is a rhizome, in which lateral transfers occur between and among bacteria, viruses, archaea, and eukaryotes mediated by plasmids, virophages, and archaeophages. The modern human genome comprises vertically inherited elements from ancestors and from laterally inherited elements from other eukaryotes, bacteria, and viruses. The arrows identify the lateral sequence transfers, and the colorful arrows indicate the transfer events toward humans.