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Diversity
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Phylogeny, Ages, Molecules and Fossils of Land Plants
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Phylogeny, Ages, Molecules and Fossils of Land Plants

A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Diversity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2024) | Viewed by 1987

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yin-Long Qiu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Interests: land plant phylogeny and evolution; mitochondrial genome evolution
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Yang Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Fairy Lake Botanical Garden, Shenzhen & Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518004, China
Interests: early land plant evolution; bryophyte phylogeny; phylogenomics; comparative genomics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Land plants represent one of the most important groups of eukaryotes in the terrestrial biota. Recent active research on their phylogeny and evolution using gene and genomic sequences, as well as morphological characters of extant and extinct taxa, have greatly improved our understanding of relationships among many important clades. Furthermore, the availability of big data and advances in computational methods and software of molecular clock studies have made divergence time studies an active area of research. Tremendous progress has been made in improving our understanding of the evolutionary history of this large group. At the same time, some long-established hypotheses have been challenged and controversies have also been generated.

This Special Issue offers a collection of review and primary research papers that report on the latest status of this important field. Submissions on phylogenetics, phylogenomics, divergence time studies, and paleobotany of all groups of land plants are all welcome.

Dr. Yin-Long Qiu
Dr. Yang Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • land plants
  • phylogeny
  • divergence time
  • molecular clock
  • fossil
  • evolution

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

20 pages, 1738 KiB  
Review
A Fossil Record of Spores before Sporophytes
by Paul K. Strother and Wilson A. Taylor
Diversity 2024, 16(7), 428; https://doi.org/10.3390/d16070428 - 22 Jul 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 524
Abstract
Because their resistant, sporopolleninous walls preserve a record of morphogenetic change during spore formation, fossil cryptospores provide a direct physical record of the evolution of sporogenesis during the algal–plant transition. That transition itself is a story of the evolution of development—it is not [...] Read more.
Because their resistant, sporopolleninous walls preserve a record of morphogenetic change during spore formation, fossil cryptospores provide a direct physical record of the evolution of sporogenesis during the algal–plant transition. That transition itself is a story of the evolution of development—it is not about phylogeny. Here, we review the fossil record of terrestrially derived spore/cryptospore assemblages and attempt to place these microfossils in their evolutionary context with respect to the origin of complex multicellularity in plants. Cambrian cryptospores show features related to karyokinesis seen in extant charophytes, but they also possess ultrastructure similar to that seen in liverworts today. Dyadospora, a cryptospore dyad recovered from sporangia of Devonian embryophytes, first occurs in the earliest Ordovician. Tetrahedraletes, a likely precursor to the trilete spore, first occurs in the Middle Ordovician. These fossils correspond to evolutionary novelties that were acquired during a period of genome assembly prior to the existence of upright, axial sporophytes. The cryptospore/spore fossil record provides a temporal scaffold for the acquisition of novel characters relating to the evolution of plant sporogenesis during the Cambrian–Silurian interval. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phylogeny, Ages, Molecules and Fossils of Land Plants)
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27 pages, 1184 KiB  
Review
Relationships Among the Bryophytes and Vascular Plants: A Case Study in Deep-Time Reconstruction
by Yin-Long Qiu and Brent D. Mishler
Diversity 2024, 16(7), 426; https://doi.org/10.3390/d16070426 - 21 Jul 2024
Viewed by 843
Abstract
Relationships of the three bryophyte lineages (liverworts, mosses, and hornworts) to vascular plants is a pivotal question in the study of the origin and evolution of land plants. In recent decades, this question has been subjected to intense phylogenetic analyses using morphological characters, [...] Read more.
Relationships of the three bryophyte lineages (liverworts, mosses, and hornworts) to vascular plants is a pivotal question in the study of the origin and evolution of land plants. In recent decades, this question has been subjected to intense phylogenetic analyses using morphological characters, multigene DNA sequences, and genome structural characters. A tentative consensus, reached ten years ago, suggested that bryophytes are a paraphyletic group, with liverworts being sister to all other land plants and hornworts being sister to vascular plants. However, several more recent nuclear phylogenomic studies have concluded that bryophytes represent a monophyletic group that is sister to vascular plants. A discussion is presented here on strengths and weaknesses of different types of characters (morphological traits, nucleotide sequences, and genome structural arrangements) and their suitability for resolving deep phylogenetic relationships. Moreover, several criteria for credible phylogenetic reconstruction are proposed. Strong statistical support for reconstructed relationships should be derived from high-quality, independent characters selected for suitability to the particular question being addressed. The relationships inferred in a study should be congruent with those from as many other lines of phylogenetic evidence as possible. Any incongruities should be explicable by well-understood biological mechanisms. It is concluded that the relationships of the three bryophyte lineages to vascular plants should currently be viewed as unresolved. This is a difficult phylogenetic problem; the land plants underwent a rapid radiation a long time ago. Yet, further exploration of analytical methods and careful choice of characters should lead to the eventual elucidation of diversification patterns among early land plants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phylogeny, Ages, Molecules and Fossils of Land Plants)
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