write in details
conquest of land by angiosperms
Answers
The ANR gene is required to tolerate 'extreme dehydration' in the moss Physcomitrella patens, a land plant that is used as an experimental model.
The ANR gene is required to tolerate 'extreme dehydration' in the moss Physcomitrella patens, a land plant that is used as an experimental model.
Researchers at the Centre for Plant Sciences at the University found that the ANR gene -- present in the most ancient land plants -- was inherited from ancestral fresh water algae.
The ANR gene has since been lost in the evolution of seed plants. The results are published in the American Society of Plant Biology's journal The Plant Cell.
Dr Andrew Cuming, who led the research, said: "This gene hadn't been identified so far because most research until now has focused on modern flowering plants. Ancient plants such as mosses and green algae are 'time machines' that help us to reveal evolutionary secrets that changed the world. Before plants colonised land, the world was a barren place. Land plants changed the planet, its climate, its geology and its natural history."
The paper explains how the ANR gene is a part of an ancestral molecular pathway that enables anatomically simple plants -- like the first plants to colonise land -- to survive dehydration -- a necessity for the first plants washed up on the fringes of bodies of water (pond slime) to survive on land
Researchers at the Centre for Plant Sciences at the University found that the ANR gene -- present in the most ancient land plants -- was inherited from ancestral fresh water algae.
The ANR gene has since been lost in the evolution of seed plants. The results are published in the American Society of Plant Biology's journal The Plant Cell.
Dr Andrew Cuming, who led the research, said: "This gene hadn't been identified so far because most research until now has focused on modern flowering plants. Ancient plants such as mosses and green algae are 'time machines' that help us to reveal evolutionary secrets that changed the world. Before plants colonised land, the world was a barren place. Land plants changed the planet, its climate, its geology and its natural history."
The paper explains how the ANR gene is a part of an ancestral molecular pathway that enables anatomically simple plants -- like the first plants to colonise land -- to survive dehydration -- a necessity for the first plants washed up on the fringes of bodies of water (pond slime) to survive on land