古老的大规模基因重复和植物的多样化揭示了植物的地球化

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.

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...

The seminal work of Ohno in 1970 popularized the idea of gene duplication and divergence. DNA sequence comparison studies reveal that a large portion of the genes in bacteria, archaebacteria, and eukaryotes was  generated by gene duplication and divergence, indicating its critical role in evolution.
The duplicated copies of the gene are called Paralogs. Paralogs with similar sequences and functions form a gene family. Across several species, a large number of gene families are...

Seedless Vascular Plants Were the First Tall Plants on Earth

Scientists record evolutionary history by analyzing fossil, morphological, and genetic data. The fossil record documents the history of life on Earth and provides evidence for evolution. However, both fossil and living organisms offer evidence that outlines Earth’s evolutionary history.