Evolution of phenotypic disparity in the plant kingdom

Abstract

The plant kingdom exhibits diverse bodyplans, from single-celled algae to complex multicellular land plants, but it is unclear how this phenotypic disparity was achieved. Here we show that the living divisions comprise discrete clusters within morphospace, separated largely by reproductive innovations, the extinction of evolutionary intermediates and lineage-specific evolution. Phenotypic complexity correlates not with disparity but with ploidy history, reflecting the role of genome duplication in plant macroevolution. Overall, the plant kingdom exhibits a pattern of episodically increasing disparity throughout its evolutionary history that mirrors the evolutionary floras and reflects ecological expansion facilitated by reproductive innovations. This pattern also parallels that seen in the animal and fungal kingdoms, suggesting a general pattern for the evolution of multicellular bodyplans.

The global pattern of epiphytic liverwort disparity: insights from Frullania

“…In this case, the evolution of selected traits is expected to be influenced by some climatic factors that are related to water-availability [53,54], concerning their ecological functions, e.g., uptake of water and mineral nutrition from the surrounding air [48,55]. Therefore, the higher disparity of epiphytic liverworts at low latitudes may be related with an increase of ecological opportunities provided by tropic and subtropic forests, e.g., rich diversity of vascular plants as epiphytic substrates and extensive resources [41,56], and / or the relaxed ecological constraints, e.g., high humidity [34,53], and / or phenotypic innovation that facilitate ecospace expansion [13,57,58]. This assumption can also be used to explain the observations in some temperate regions, e.g., East Asia, which also exhibit high diversity and disparity (Fig.…”

“…the measure of morphological variation among species and higher taxa [11]. Thus, with a few exceptions for plants [12][13][14][15][16][17], we still do not have a good understanding of how morphological disparity accumulates along general environmental and latitudinal gradients, and what explains these patterns, particularly in land plants [2].…”

Undoing the ‘nasty: dissecting touch-sensitive stigma movement (thigmonasty) and its loss in self-pollinating monkeyflowers

“…Thus, understanding the origins of novel traits remains one of the most fascinating and challenging goals in evolutionary biology. New comparative genomics approaches, combined with functional knowledge from extant organisms, are increasingly revealing the genetic and genomic shifts that contribute to major organismal innovations (Chanderbali et al 2016; Guijarro-Clarke et al 2020; Farkas et al 2022; Clark et al 2023). A key first step in such analyses is identifying candidate genes and pathways involved in novel trait development through investigating natural losses parallel to the knockout mutations of forward genetics.…”

Extreme functional specialization of fertile leaves in a widespread fern species and its implications on the evolution of reproductive dimorphism

“…Managing these investment strategies can impact short‐term resource economics and long‐term evolutionary processes, and are especially important during periods of limited resources. In plants, varied strategies of resource distribution have played a pivotal role in shaping the specialization of their reproductive systems (Clark et al., 2023 ). For instance, the earliest vascular plants produced reproductive structures directly on the terminal tips of vegetative axes, while the extant seed plants produced wholly distinct structures for reproduction and vegetative assimilation (Leslie et al., 2021 ).…”