Evolution of Land Plants Flashcards
What is the Latin name for the plant kingdom?
Plantae
What is the name for land plants?
Embryophytes
What is the name for chlorophytes, charophytes and other green algae and land plants?
Viridiplantae
How many species of land plants are there?
350-400,000 species
What is the name for flowering plants?
Angiosperms
What is symbiosis?
A mutualistic or common relationship between plants and other organisms such as algae or fungi
What are some benefits of symbiosis?
Nutrition Disease prevention Pollination Seed dispersal Habitat
What did plants descend from?
Heterotrophic eukaryotes, which engulfed a cyanobacterium and underwent primary endosymbiosis, forming red and green algae
What are the closest relatives to land plants?
Chara
Coleochaete
What are the features of Chara and Coleochaete that make them similar and different to land plants?
They have parenchymatous bodies (basic tissue of plants) that grow by an apical meristem (rapidly dividing cells at the of shoot and root). However, they have haplontic life cycles
What is a haplontic lifecycle?
Exist as a haploid being most of the time. Gametes are haploid and produced by mitosis. They fuse to form a diploid zygote, but this zygote divides by meiosis straight away. No mitosis in diploid phase
What type of life cycle do all land plants have?
Haplodiplontic
What is a haplodiplontic life cycle?
The plant undergoes both haploid and diploid mitosis - multicellular diploid and haploid stages occur, and meiosis is ‘sporic’
What is a diplontic life cycle?
Mitosis only occurs in the diploid phase
Exist as a multicellular diploid being most of the time, gametes carry genetic information to the next generation. Includes animals and some fungi
What is produced from meiosis in land plants?
Spores, which germinate into a haploid multicellular stage, producing gametes for sexual reproduction
Reproduction in Chara
Oogmaous - large egg cells born in multicellular ‘megagametangia’ and sperm born in multicellular ‘microgametangia’
During fertilisation sterile cells around the zygote thicken to form a protective layer around the egg
What is a gametophyte?
A haploid multicellular organism that develops from a haploid spore that has one set of chromosomes - it is the sexual phase of the alternation of generations
What is the sporophyte?
The asexual and diploid phase of the alternation of generation in plants. It is the dominant form in vascular plants
What and when we the first fossil evidence of Embryophytes?
450 million years ago
‘Microfossils’ - spores with ‘Trilete mark’ found indicating meiotic tetrads and sporophytes
What is a meiotic tetrad?
A group of four chromatids formed from each pair of homologous chromosomes that split longitudinally during the prophase of meiosis
What was the defining feature of the microfossils?
Thick walls made of sporopollenin
What was the first complete fossil, and what form of its life cycle was it in?
Cooksonia
Sporophyte form
What new adaptations did plants require for the shift from aquatic lifestyle to living on land, and what forms did they come in?
They had to avoid desiccation
1) They needed access to water and transport of water around the plant - this came in the form of a vascular system
2) Thick coatings around spores to avoid desiccation, but still allowing gas exchange. Plants evolved stomata and waxy cuticles / sporopollenin
What are the specialised egg-producing structures possessed by all Embryophytes?
Archegonia (specialised megagametangia)
What are transfer cells?
They line the archegonium, and are able to shuttle nutrients to the developing sporophyte embryo in the archegonium
What was the big change that separated land plants from their haplontic ancestors?
The mutation that caused diploid mitosis to occur - the sporophyte becomes a much bigger part of their lifecycle
What do all extant land plants undergo?
A heteromorphic alternation of generations - their life cycle takes them through both haploid and diploid forms
What are the Bryophytes?
An informal group consisting of three divisions of non-vascular land plants
What are the three Bryophyte divisions?
Liverworts
Hornworts
Mosses
What is an example of a genus of liverworts?
Marchantia
What is the sperm-producing (male sex organ) structure of algae, mosses, ferns, fungi and other non-flowering plants?
Antheridium
What is the morphology of liverworts? (6 features)
1) Parenchymatous body
2) Very thin cuticle on upper surface
3) No stomata
4) No roots
5) No true leaves
6) No vascular system
What is the most primitive group of extant Embryophytes?
Liverworts
What reproductive structures does Marchantia (liverwort genus) possess?
Archegonium and antheridium
What are the two types of specialised conducting cells that mosses have?
Hydrom - dead cells which transport water and provide stem support. Found in the centre of stem
Leptom - living cells which transport photosynthate
What type of Bryophyte has a rudimentary transport system in advanced species?
Mosses
What are moss stems surrounded by?
The cortex
What grows from the apical meristem in gametophytes?
The gametophyte
What does each sporangium contain in mosses?
Many spores
What is a sporangium?
A receptacle in ferns and lower plants in which asexual spores and formed
Features of hornworts
Their antheridia and archegonia are buried Cells have just one chloroplast Symbiotic with cyanobacteria Some species have stomata on sporophyte No discrete sporangia
Adaptive features of Embryophytes
Archegonia
Cuticle (cutin - waxy, water-repellant substance)
Stomata
Thick-walled spores (sporopollenin)
Vascular tissue - xylem (lignin for rigidity)
What is the name for vascular plants?
Tracheophytes
What is the dominant form in tracheophytes? What is it supported by?
Sporophyte is the dominant form, supported by tracheids
What are tracheids?
A type of water-conducting cell in the xylem which lacks perforations in the cell wall
Thickened with lignin so provide support for stems and make wood
Present in all vascular plants
Dead cells - no protoplasm
What is the trend in sporophytes of tracheophytes?
They are increasingly more complex and branched
What genus represents a possible intermediate between Bryophytes and Tracheophytes?
Cooksonia
What features of Cooksonia suggest that it is an intermediate between tracheophytes and bryophytes?
They have tracheid-like thickened cells, a possible intermediate between moss hydrom cells and tracheids
Dichotomous branching sporophyte with terminal sporangia
Rhizomes
No fossil gametophytes
What is dichotomous branching?
The branches form as a result of equal division of a terminal bud into two equal branches
What are rhizomes?
Continuously growing horizontal underground stems which puts out lateral shoots and roots at intervals
What is protoplasm?
The colourless material comprising the living part of a call, including the cytoplasm, nucleus and other organelles
What was one of the first tracheophytes, which was similar to Cooksonia but also possessed tracheids? When did it evolve?
Aglaophyton major
400 million years ago
What tracheophyte evolved 400 million years ago and had unequal dichotomous branching (pseudomonopodial)?
Rhynia Gwynne-vaughanii
What tracheophyte evolved around 400 million years ago and had lateral sporangia?
Zosterophyllum
What are lateral sporangia?
Sporangia placed on the side of stems
What are terminal sporangia?
Sporangia on the tips of stems
What tracheophyte evolved 390 million years ago and had a more advanced vascular system with pitted tracheids and underground branching / rhizomes?
Psilophyton dawsonii
How did the branching of sporophytes evolve, allowing plants to grow to much greater heights?
From dichotomous (equal dichotomy) To pseudomonopodial (unequal dichotomy) To monopodial (grows upward from a single point)
What is the stele of a plant?
The central core of the stem and root of vascular plants, composed of primary vascular tissues - the xylem and phloem
What are the names of the 3 arrangements of xylem and phloem within the stele?
Protostele
Siphonostele
Eustele
What plants have a protostele?
Early lycophytes and arthrophytes
E.g. Cooksonia, Aglaophyton, Rhynia
When did the siphonostele evolve, and what plants possess it?
Evolved 395 million years ago
Possessed by Lycophytes, Arthrophytes and ferns
When did the eustele evolve, and what plants possess it?
380 million years ago
Found in advanced tracheophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms
What are the 5 ways a tracheid wall can thicken?
Annular Helical Scalariform Reticulate Pitted
Evolutionary trends in early tracheophytes
Increased branching of sporophytes Increased size of sporophyte Reduced size of gametophyte Increased complexity of vascular system Evolution of leaves Evolution of roots
When did leaf-like structures and true leaves evolve?
Mid-late Devonian period
390-354 million years ago
What are microphylls?
‘Stem-hugging’ leaves with single vascular strands and no stem
What plants possess microphylls and what type of stele are they associated with?
Lycophytes
They are associated with possessing protosteles
What are megaphylls?
Leaves with branched vascular strands and attached to the main stem by a petiole
What is a petiole?
The stalk that joins a leaf to a stem
What plants are megaphylls found in and what type of stele are they associated with?
Found in ferns and all flowering plants
Associated with stems which have siphonostele or eustele
What may have been the selective force for the evolution of leaves?
Reduced CO2 levels, as plants needed a more efficient way to collect CO2 for photosynthesis when levels were lower
Give examples of Lycophytes
Club mosses
Spike mosses
Quillworts
What are features of Lycophytes?
Lateral sporangia
Microphylls
What are features of Euphyllophytes?
Terminal sporangia in pairs
megaphylls
What plants are Euphillophytes?
Monilophyton
Seed plants