Final answer:
Microbiologist Carl Woese was the first to separate three domains of organisms on the tree of life: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya.
Step-by-step explanation:
Microbiologist Carl Woese was the first to separate three domains of organisms on the tree of life: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya.
He used genetic relationships rather than similarities based on morphology to construct his phylogenetic tree. This groundbreaking work challenged the previous classification of organisms into five kingdoms and provided a new understanding of the evolutionary relationships among living organisms.