How plants conquered land: evolution of terrestrial adaptation

Abstract

The transition of plants from water to land is considered one of the most significant events in the evolution of life on Earth. The colonization of land by plants, accompanied by their morphological, physiological and developmental changes, resulted in plant biodiversity. Besides significantly influencing oxygen levels in the air and on land, plants manufacture organic matter from CO2 and water with the help of sunlight, paving the way for the diversification of nonplant lineages ranging from microscopic organisms to animals. Land plants regulate the climate by adjusting total biomass and energy flow. At the genetic level, these innovations are achieved through the rearrangement of pre‐existing genetic information. Advances in genome sequencing technology are revamping our understanding of plant evolution. This study highlights the morphological and genomic innovations that allow plants to integrate life on Earth.

Functional characterization of plant specific Indeterminate Domain (IDD) transcription factors in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

“…The evolution of plants from aquatic to terrestrial habitats is noteworthy. Unlike in aquatic environments, land plants have to increase their survivability by specializing in organs to compartmentalize functions, such as developing effective root systems and vascular systems for water transport, increasing photosynthetic ability and survival adaptations, such as distinguishing beneficial organisms from pathogens and predators, and adapting to dry terrain 100 . Plant-specific transcription factors drive adaptation through genome and gene duplication events and specialize in downstream fuctions 19,21,101,102 .…”

Lhcb9-dependent photosystem I structure in moss reveals evolutionary adaptation to changing light conditions during aquatic-terrestrial transition

“…As oxyphototrophs, plants are responsible for approximately half of the primary production through photosynthesis, and they emerged approximately 450 million years ago, when green lineage (green algae and plants) transited from an aqueous to a terrestrial environment[3]. Bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses and hornworts, distinguished themselves in this important evolutionary event as the first types of the terrestrial green plants, thus represent evolutionary intermediate between aquatic green algae and terrestrial flowering plants[4, 5]. One moss, Physcomitrium patens ( P. patens , also known as Physcomitrella patens ), has been used extensively as a model plant in a wide range of research fields since its genome was completely sequenced [5, 6].…”

Editorial: Revisiting the limits of plant life - plant adaptations to extreme terrestrial environments relating to astrobiology and space biology

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Editorial on the Research TopicRevisiting the limits of plant life -plant adaptations to extreme terrestrial environments relating to astrobiology and space biology Plants were essential to the early evolution of terrestrial life and colonization of the young Earth (Kapoor et al, 2023). Plant communities continue to colonize and transform our planet including the newest ecosystems formed post-glaciation, restoring those degraded by human activities and adapting to changing ecological conditions (Huston and Smith, 1987;Chapin et al, 1994;Yuan et al, 2020; Heim et al, 2021).

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