BIOL 1108 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Sphagnum, Lignin, Sexual Reproduction
Document Summary
From algae to land plants: importance, review: a tree of life. Green algae: characteristics, the life cycle of coleochaete, the transition to land and the first land plants. Family trees help us understand where we come from, our own recent evolutionary history. Phylogenies are built from analyses of traits (morphological, dna sequences, etc. ) and may be supported by fossil evidence. Phylogenies inform us about evolution: phylogenies can inform us on the evolution of traits, traits define the lineages. Evolutionary histories reflect or are composed of events of innovation, diversification, extinction, survival, and more diversification. Any lineage that survives has the potential to continue to evolve: this means that representatives of old lineages may be themselves of recent origin. What is important to understand is that if the earlier lineages had not arisen, the younger ones would have never appeared: no grandparents means no grandchildren. Bryophytes (the mosses) are living plants that arose very early.
