2021/10/01 by Philip C. J. Donoghue, C. J. O. Harrison, Jordi Paps +1 · 2 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Plant Reproductive Biology #Plant Molecular Biology Research #Plant and animal studies
paper · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.07.038
openalex publication_date 2021/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
There can be no doubt that early land plant evolution transformed the planet but, until recently, how and when this was achieved was unclear. Coincidence in the first appearance of land plant fossils and formative shifts in atmospheric oxygen and CO 2 are an artefact of the paucity of earlier terrestrial rocks. Disentangling the timing of land plant bodyplan assembly and its impact on global biogeochemical cycles has been precluded by uncertainty concerning the relationships of bryophytes to one another and to the tracheophytes, as well as the timescale over which these events unfolded. New genome and transcriptome sequencing projects, combined with the application of sophisticated phylogenomic modelling methods, have yielded increasing support for the Setaphyta clade of liverworts and mosses, within monophyletic bryophytes. We consider the evolution of anatomy, genes, genomes and of development within this phylogenetic context, concluding that many vascular plant (tracheophytes) novelties were already present in a comparatively complex last common ancestor of living land plants (embryophytes). Molecular clock analyses indicate that embryophytes emerged in a mid-Cambrian to early Ordovician interval, compatible with hypotheses on their role as geoengineers, precipitating early Palaeozoic glaciations.