Morphogeometric Approaches to Non-vascular Plants

Abstract

Morphometric analysis of organisms has undergone a dramatic renaissance in recent years, embracing a range of novel computational and imaging techniques to provide new approaches to phenotypic characterization. These innovations have often developed piece-meal, and may reflect the taxonomic specializations and biases of their creators. In this review, we aim to provide a brief introduction to applications and applicability of modern morphometrics to non-vascular land plants, an often overlooked but evolutionarily and ecologically important group. The scale and physiology of bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) differ in important and informative ways from more “traditional” model plants, and their inclusion has the potential to powerfully broaden perspectives in plant morphology. In particular we highlight three areas where the “bryophytic perspective” shows considerable inter-disciplinary potential: (i) bryophytes as models for intra-specific and inter-specific phenotypic variation, (ii) bryophyte growth-forms as areas for innovation in architectural modularity, and (iii) bryophytes as models of ecophysiological integration between organs, individuals, and stands. We suggest that advances should come from two-way dialog: the translation and adoption of techniques recently developed for vascular plants (and other organisms) to bryophytes and the use of bryophytes as model systems for the innovation of new techniques and paradigms in morphogeometric approaches.

An allometric scaling approach to estimate epiphytic bryophyte biomass in tropical montane cloud forests

“…production, population density or other abundance related dependent variables (Enquist, Brown, 238 & West 1998;Enquist et al 1999). Stanton and Reeb (2016) suggested that some characteristics 239 of bryophytes may be allometrically scaled like vascular plants, which was verified in this study. 240…”

Morphological allometry constrains symmetric shape variation, but not asymmetry, of Halimeda tuna (Bryopsidales, Ulvophyceae) segments

“…Different units within individuals are genetically identical and, thus, their shape differences reflect other sources of variation, such as position along the segmental series [ 5 ], enviromental heterogeneity [ 4 , 7 ], or developmental noise [ 8 ]. While the within-individual shape variation of modular segments in streptophyte plants and invertebrates has recently been investigated in a number of studies [ 2 , 5 – 7 , 9 ], there are much less data on patterns of quantitative shape plasticity in the bryopsidalean green macroalgae, such as Halimeda . These organisms are typical by so called translational symmetry , i.e.…”

A taxonomic revision of cleistocarpous species of Weissia (Pottiaceae, Bryophyta) in Japan

“…The inferred length of the branches subtending nodes in Japanese Weissia is relatively short (< 0.0031), suggesting rapid and parallel sporophyte modifications (cleistocarpy) in this clade, as also shown in European and North American Weissia by Werner et al (2005). Gametophytes often display a high degree of polymorphism while sporophytes remain less variable at intra-and inter-specific levels in bryophytes (Stanton & Reeb 2016). In the case of Weissia, however, our results suggest that sporophytes in Weissia species are more plastic than gametophytes between species, as also found in Funariaceae Schwägrichen (1830: 43) (Fife 1985).…”