Originally posted on Dear Kitty. Some blog:
https://youtu.be/lQHo7nlqjsg This October 2016 video, in English with Brazilian Portuguese subtitles, says about itself: Short video explaining a few key facts and concepts on land plant evolution from a phylogenetic perspective. From the Institute of Science and Technology Austria: When plant roots learned to follow gravity Scientists identify key evolutionary steps of gravity-directed root growth August 2, 2019 Summary: Highly developed seed plants evolved deep root systems that are able to sense Earth’s gravity. The ‘how and when’ of this evolutionary step has, until now, remained unknown. Plant biologists have identified crucial components and processes which only developed in seed plants around 350 million years ago to enable fast and efficient gravity-driven root growth. One of the most important events in evolutionary history occurred around 500 million years ago with the spread of plant life from water to land. For plants to thrive in this new environment, root systems had to evolve to grow downwards, following gravity with two primary purposes: anchoring in the soil and providing a source of water and nutrients for growth of the parts of the plant above the ground. This mechanism — called gravitropism — has been extensively studied in flowering plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana. However, it has never been systematically compared throughout the plant kingdom, and its evolutionary origin remains a mystery. Down, down, down — but at different speed Now, Yuzhou Zhang, postdoc in the…
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