Spore heroes: unlocking the life-cycle secrets of the earliest land plants

Fossils from 432m years ago push back the origin of the alternating life cycle still seen in ferns todayOur world today is dominated by theflowering plants, or angiosperms, which appeared approximately 130m years ago and rapidly diversified to become the top dogs in most ecosystems. But there are plenty of other plants from more ancient lineages still around, doing deeply weird things in their life cycles, and doing them for much longer than we have realised.Flowering plants themselves are a refinement of a much earlier innovation about 375m years ago: the seed. Seeds provide protection and a source of nutrition for the embryo, and a handy means of dispersal. A seed germinates and then grows into another plant which is more or less the same as its parents. This is not how spore-producing plants like ferns do things.Continue reading...

Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - May 24, 2018 Category: Science Authors: Susannah Lydon Tags: Science Fossils Evolution Biology Plants Source Type: news