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02:22Introduction to Plant Diversity
From Water to Land
02:26Non-vascular Seedless Plants
The diverse plant life on Earth—consisting of nearly 400,000 species—can be divided into three broad categories based on biological characteristics: nonvascular, seedless vascular, and seed plants.
02:27Basic Plant Anatomy: Roots, Stems, and Leaves
The primary organs of vascular plants are roots, stems, and leaves, but these structures can be highly variable, adapted for the specific needs and environment of different plant species.
02:16Light Acquisition
In order to produce glucose, plants need to capture sufficient light energy. Many modern plants have evolved leaves specialized for light acquisition. Leaves can be only millimeters in width or tens of meters wide, depending on the environment. Due to competition for sunlight, evolution has driven the evolution of increasingly larger leaves and taller plants, to avoid shading by their neighbors with contaminant elaboration of root architecture and mechanisms to transport water and nutrients.
01:57Adaptations that Reduce Water Loss
Though evaporation from plant leaves drives transpiration, it also results in loss of water. Because water is critical for photosynthetic reactions and other cellular processes, evolutionary pressures on plants in different environments have driven the acquisition of adaptations that reduce water loss.
01:59Plant Breeding and Biotechnology
Crop cultivation has a long history in human civilization, with records showing the cultivation of cereal plants beginning at around 8000 BC. This early plant breeding was developed primarily to provide a steady supply of food.
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Updated: Jun 24, 2026
08:53
Application of Two-spotted Spider Mite Tetranychus urticae for Plant-pest Interaction Studies
Published on: July 4, 2014
Summary
No abstract available in PubMed .
