We already looked in detail at vent 1 and vent 2. We're finding more and more complexity at these separate vents.  So we're limiting the complexity for our discussion by splitting these populations. Now we move onto vent 3, which has the populations anae3 and anae4. Anae4 is the result of anae3#101 (random member of the population) engulfing another microorganism and integrating its DNA to produce more energy, and thus reproduce more efficiently.

The concept of an organism utilizing the genome of another organism is documented, as seen with recently described photosynthetic slugs. But we're dealing with single-celled organisms, and the process of genetic integration occurs commonly in bacteria, particularly in relation to mutation and evolution.

For our population, the gene transfer assumed an ability of the cell to engulf another organism with genetic material. This is in contrast to the selective gene transfer possible with anae8 at vent 1 due to alterations in the membrane proteins. However, this could be the evolution of a single function by two different means, independently. So we have at two different geographic locations, two different populations with two different methods of integrating genes from other organisms.

Competition for resources and the elimination of anae3 as a population is a possibility because of anae4's advantage. This then reduces the variety at this vent.

And this is the direction I think we'll go in for this one. Sometimes natural selection (via evolution) results in a reduced gene pool and population variety as opposed to increasing it.

Now, after the dissemination of the populations to three vents and a round of genetic divergence, we are left with the following family tree:

You my be asking, "where are populations 3, 5, and 7?" Well, they died out. If we discover their fossils we can add them into a phylogenetic tree. For now, they're missing links (if we forget the fact that we've been watching them). However, from genetic analysis, it would be possible to place the populations above into position in relation to one another, even if we hadn't been following their evolution as it happens.