Amborella trichopoda is strongly supported as the single living species of the sister lineage to all other extant flowering plants, providing a unique reference for inferring the genome content and structure of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of living angiosperms. Sequencing the Amborella genome, we identified an ancient genome duplication predating angiosperm diversification, without evidence of subsequent, lineage-specific genome duplications. Comparisons between Amborella and other angiosperms facilitated reconstruction of the ancestral angiosperm gene content and gene order in the MRCA of core eudicots. We identify new gene families, gene duplications, and floral protein-protein interactions that first appeared in the ancestral angiosperm. Transposable elements in Amborella are ancient and highly divergent, with no recent transposon radiations. Population genomic analysis across Amborella's native range in New Caledonia reveals a recent genetic bottleneck and geographic structure with conservation implications.

Phytomining technology employs hyperaccumulator plants to take up metal in harvestable plant biomass. Harvesting, drying and incineration of the biomass generates a high-grade bio-ore. We propose that "agromining" (a variant of phytomining) could provide local communities with an alternative type of agriculture on degraded lands; farming not for food crops, but for metals such as nickel (Ni). However, two decades after its inception and numerous successful experiments, commercial phytomining has not yet become a reality. To build the case for the minerals industry, a large-scale demonstration is needed to identify operational risks and provide "real-life" evidence for profitability.

The carpel is the female reproductive organ specific to flowering plants. We aim to define the genes that controlled carpel development in the common ancestor of this group as a step toward determining the molecular events that were responsible for the evolution of the carpel. CRABS CLAW (CRC) and TOUSLED (TSL) control important aspects of carpel development in the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. The basal angiosperm species Amborella trichopoda and Cabomba aquatica very likely represent the two most early diverging groups of flowering plants. We have identified putative orthologues of CRC and TSL from A. trichopoda and C. aquatica, respectively. We demonstrate the expression patterns of these genes in carpels to be very highly conserved, both spatially and temporally, with those of their Arabidopsis orthologues. We argue that CRC and TSL in Arabidopsis are likely to have conserved their respective roles in carpel development since the common ancestor of the living flowering plants. We conclude that a divergent role shown for the CRC orthologue in rice, DROOPING LEAF, most probably arose specifically in the monocot lineage. We show that, in addition to its expression in carpels, the TSL orthologue of C. aquatica is expressed in tissues that contribute to buoyancy and argue that its role in these tissues may have arisen later than its role in carpel development.Amborella ͉ Cabomba ͉ ANITA ͉ gynoecium ͉ flower T he carpel is the female reproductive organ specific to the angiosperms, or flowering plants. In most species, the carpel is differentiated into stigma, style, and ovary tissues and may occur as a separate structure, or fused with other carpels in a syncarpic pistil. The carpel protects the ovules within its ovary and provides a location for pollen tube guidance and pollen incompatibility mechanisms. After fertilization, the ovary develops into a fruit that protects the seeds and may participate in their dissemination. For these reasons, the carpel was probably a major factor in the success of the angiosperms, which diversified from an unknown, presumably gymnosperm-like ancestor to form in excess of 300,000 species alive today.To understand the molecular evolution events that led to the first carpels, we must first know what genes and mechanisms of carpel development were present in the earliest flowering plants. This information may be obtained by comparing the presence and functions of orthologous genes that control carpel development in present-day species whose evolutionary lineages diverged very early in flowering plant evolution. The two prerequisites of such an analysis are a robust molecular phylogeny of the flowering plants and an understanding of some of the genetic mechanisms of carpel development in model species.The concordant results of five independent molecular phylogenetic studies, incorporating very widespread taxonomic sampling, have provided a more robust hypothesis for the evolutionary relationships between the major groups of seed plants than has ever before existed, as reviewed by...