Early evolution of the vascular plant body plan - the missing mechanisms

The complex body plan of modern vascular plants evolved by modification of simple systems of branching axes which originated from the determinate vegetative axis of a bryophyte-grade ancestor. Understanding body plan evolution and homologies has implications for land plant phylogeny and requires resolution of the specific developmental changes and their evolutionary sequence. The branched sporophyte may have evolved from a sterilized bryophyte sporangium, but prolongation of embryonic vegetative growth is a more parsimonious explanation. Research in the bryophyte model system Physcomitrella points to mechanisms regulating sporophyte meristem maintenance, indeterminacy, branching and the transition to reproductive development. These results can form the basis for hypotheses to identify and refine the nature and sequence of changes in development that occurred during the evolution of the indeterminate branched sporophyte from an unbranched bryophyte-grade sporophyte.