Land Plant Evolution: Listen to Your Elders

From Water to Land

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.

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.

Plant morphogenesis—the development of a plant’s form and structure—involves several overlapping developmental processes, including growth and cell differentiation. Precursor cells differentiate into specific cell types, which are organized into the tissues and organ systems that make up the functional plant.

Changes in the environment of the early Earth drove the evolution of organisms. As prokaryotic organisms in the oceans began to photosynthesize, they produced oxygen. Eventually, oxygen saturated the oceans and entered the air, resulting in an increase in atmospheric oxygen concentration, known as the oxygen revolution approximately 2.3 billion years ago. Therefore, organisms that could use oxygen for cellular respiration had an advantage. More than 1.5 years ago, eukaryotic cells and...

Plant tissue culture is widely used in both primary and applied science. Applications range from plant development studies to functional gene studies, crop improvement, commercial micropropagation, virus elimination, and conservation of rare species.