LES106 Biology: Form and Function

Semester 1, 2023/2024
Week 5

Sammy Chan
Module Instructor
 Assignments and Assessments

• Mid-term examination
Class participation Weekly 20%
• Combination of multiple choices
and short answers
Mid-term 27 Oct 2023 25%
• Materials from the first 6 examination 3 Nov 2023
lectures (new date)
Research report 22 Nov 2023 (Due) 20%

Final examination 15 Dec 2023 35%

 Learning Objectives
• Explain the relationship between the different algae clades and plants
• Describe the haplodiplontic life cycle
• Distinguish between a sporophyte and a gametophyte
• Identify two major environmental challenges for land plants and
associated adaptations
Defining Plants
• All green algae and the land plants shared a common ancestor a little
over 1 BYA
• Kingdom Viridiplantae (literally “green plants”)
• Not all photoautotrophs are plants
• Red and brown algae excluded
• A single species of freshwater green algae gave rise to the entire
terrestrial plant lineage
Defining Plants
• The green algae split into two major clades
• Chlorophytes – Never made it to land
• Charophytes – Did – sister to all land plants
• Land plants…
• Have multicellular haploid and diploid stages
• Trend toward more diploid embryo protection
• Trend toward smaller haploid stage
 Green plant phylogeny

Green plants
Streptophyta
Land plants

Bryophytes Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Green algae Green algae Seed plants

Red Algae Chlorophytes Charophytes Liverworts Mosses Hornworts Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

Ancestral alga
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Defining Plants https://www.flickr.com/photos/2
2887580@N06/3109866149

• Adaptations to terrestrial life

• Protection from desiccation (losing H2O to the air)
• Limited amount of H2O available on land https://www.nature.com/ar
ticles/s41477-019-0390-3

• Waxy cuticle and stomata (singular stoma)

• Moving water using tracheids
• Tracheophytes have tracheids
• Xylem and phloem to conduct water and food
• Dealing with UV radiation
• Shift to a dominant diploid generation
• Haplodiplontic life cycle https://www.shalom-education.com/courses/gcse-

• Multicellular haploid and diploid life stages

biology/lessons/transport-systems/topic/xylem-and-phloem/

• Humans are diplontic (only the diploid stage is multicellular)

Haplodiplontic Life Cycle "gamete plant"

• Multicellular diploid stage –

sporophyte
• Produces haploid spores by
meiosis
• Diploid spore mother cells
(sporocytes) undergo meiosis in
sporangia
• Produce 4 haploid spores MITOSIS
• First cells of gametophyte
generation

"spore plant"
Haplodiplontic Life Cycle "gamete plant"

• Multicellular haploid stage –

gametophyte
• Spores divide by mitosis
• Produces gametes by mitosis
• Gametes fuse to form diploid
zygote
• First cell of next sporophyte
generation MITOSIS

"spore plant"
Haplodiplontic Life Cycle "gamete plant"

• All land plants are haplodiplontic

• Relative sizes of generations vary
• Moss
• Large gametophyte –
photosynthetic and free-living
• Small, dependent sporophyte
• Angiosperm (flowering plants) MITOSIS

• Small, dependent gametophyte

• Large sporophyte

"spore plant"
 Learning Objectives
• Describe adaptations of bryophytes for terrestrial environments
Green algae
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

• Green algae have two distinct

lineages

Chlorophytes

Charophytes
• Chlorophytes – Gave rise to aquatic

Liverworts
algae
• Streptophytes – Gave rise to land
plants
• Modern chlorophytes closely
resemble land plants
• Chloroplasts are biochemically
similar to those of the plants
 Green plant phylogeny

Green plants
Streptophyta
Land plants

Bryophytes Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Green algae Green algae Seed plants

Red Algae Chlorophytes Charophytes Liverworts Mosses Hornworts Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

Ancestral alga
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Chlorophytes
• Volvox
• Colonial chlorophyte
• Hollow sphere of a single
layer of 500–60,000 cells
• Individual cells each have
2 flagella
Chlorophytes
• Early green algae probably resembled Chlamydomonas reinhardtiii
• Individuals are microscopic
• 2 anterior flagella
• Most individuals are haploid
• Always unicellular
Chlorophytes
• Ulva
• Multicellular chlorophyte
• Haplodiplontic life cycle
• Gametophyte and sporophyte have
identical appearance
• Edible, often called "sea lettuce"

• No ancestral chlorophytes gave © Dr. Diane S. Littler

rise to land plants

Charophytes
• Also green algae

• Distinguished from chlorophytes by

close phylogenetic relationship to
land plants

• Form green mats around the edges

of freshwater ponds and marshes

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG448
Charophytes
• One species must have
successfully inched its way onto land
through adaptations to drying

• Charophytes have haplontic life cycles

• Evolution of diplontic embryo and
haplodiplontic life cycle occurred after
moving to land

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AG448
 Green plant phylogeny

Green plants
Streptophyta
Land plants

Bryophytes Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Green algae Green algae Seed plants

Red Algae Chlorophytes Charophytes Liverworts Mosses Hornworts Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

Ancestral alga
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Bryophytes
• Closest living descendants of the first land plants
• Land plants evolved from freshwater algae
• Called non-tracheophytes because they lack tracheids
• Do have other transport/conducting cells
• Mycorrhizal associations important in enhancing water uptake
• Symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants
 Green plant phylogeny

Green plants
Streptophyta
Land plants

Bryophytes Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Green algae Green algae Seed plants

Red Algae Chlorophytes Charophytes Liverworts Mosses Hornworts Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

Ancestral alga
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Bryophytes
• Simple, unspecialized, but highly adapted to diverse terrestrial
environments
• Most are small, < 7cm in height
• 24,700 species in 3 clades
• Liverworts
• Mosses
• Hornworts
• Gametophyte – conspicuous and photosynthetic
• Sporophytes – small and dependent
• Require water for sexual reproduction
Liverworts (phylum Hepaticophyta)
• Have flattened
gametophytes with
liverlike lobes (20%)
• Remaining 80% look like
mosses
• Form gametangia in
umbrella-shaped
structures
• Also undergo asexual
reproduction Common liverwort
Mosses (phylum Bryophyta)
• Gametophytes consist of small, leaflike
structures around a stemlike axis
• Not true leaves – no vascular tissue
• Anchored to substrate by rhizoids
• Multicellular gametangia form at the
tips of gametophytes
• Archegonia – Female gametangia
• Antheridia – Male gametangia
• Flagellated sperm must swim in water

Hair-cup moss
• Male and female gametangia on separate plants

• Single egg is produced in archegonium while numerous

sperms are produced in antheridium

• Released sperms swim with a flagella through dew or

rainwater to the archegonium

Hair-cup moss
Mosses (phylum Bryophyta)
• Can survive extreme water loss
• Adaptive trait in the early colonization of land that
has been lost in tracheophytes
• Lost flagellar arms associated with watery life
in the last common ancestor of land plants
• Genes associated with terrestrial stresses –
temperature, water availabilities – absent in
Chlamydomonas, present in moss
• e.g. moss & plant hormone abscisic acid not found
in algae

Hair-cup moss
Hornworts (phylum Anthocerotophyta)
• Origin is puzzling – no fossils until Cretaceous
• Sporophyte is photosynthetic
• Sporophyte embedded in gametophyte tissue
where some nutrition is derived
• Has stomata to regulate gas exchange
• Cells usually have a single large chloroplast

Gameto
By derivative work: Smith609 (talk)Hornwort_life_cicle_svg_diagram.svg: Mariana Ruiz user:LadyofHats -
phyte Hornwort_life_cicle_svg_diagram.svg, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4263488
 Land plant innovations
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Chlorophytes Charophytes Liverworts Mosses Hornworts Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

Flowers
Fruits
Seeds
Euphylls
Stems, roots, leaves
Dominant sporophyte
Vascular tissue

Stomata
Multicellular embryo
Antheridia and archegonia
Cuticle
Plasmodesmata
Chlorophyll a and b
Ancestral alga
 Learning Objectives
• Explain the evolutionary significance of tracheids
• Analyze the claim that roots, stems, and leaves are evolutionary
innovations unique to tracheophytes
Tracheophyte Plants: Roots, Stems, Leaves
Vascular plants – became successful
colonizers of the land by developing
efficient water- and food-conducting
systems
• Cooksonia, the first known vascular
land plant
• Appeared about 420 MYA
• Phylum Rhyniophyta
• Now extinct
• Only a few centimeters tall
• No roots or leaves
• Produces one type of spores
 Green plant phylogeny

Green plants
Streptophyta
Land plants

Bryophytes Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Green algae Green algae Seed plants

Red Algae Chlorophytes Charophytes Liverworts Mosses Hornworts Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

Ancestral alga
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Vascular tissues
• Conducting system allows for distribution of nutrients
Xylem https://www.shalom-education.com/courses/gcse-

• Conducts water and dissolved minerals upward from the roots

biology/lessons/transport-systems/topic/xylem-and-phloem/

Phloem "gamete plant"

• Conducts sucrose and hormones throughout the plant
• Enable enhanced height and size in the tracheophytes
• Develops in sporophyte but not gametophyte
• Cuticle and stomata also found in land plants

MITO
SIS

"spore plant"
 Tracheophytes: Roots, Stems, Leaves
• Vascular plants include seven extant phyla grouped Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes

in three clades Lycophytes Ferns + Allies

Seed plants
Gymnosperms Angiosperms

1. Lycophytes (club mosses)

2. Pterophytes (ferns and relatives)
3. Seed plants …next lecture
• Tracheophytes dominate terrestrial habitats

• The haplodiplontic life cycle persists: the

gametophyte reduced in size relative to the
sporophyte during the evolution of tracheophytes
• Similar reduction in multicellular gametangia has
also occurred
 Tracheophytes: Roots, Stems, Leaves
• Stems
• Early fossils reveal stems but no roots or leaves
• Stems evolved prior to roots Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Seed plants
• Lack of roots limited early tracheophytes Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

• Roots
• True roots are found only in tracheophytes
• Provide transport and support
• Lycophytes diverged before true roots appeared
 Tracheophytes: Roots, Stems, Leaves
• Leaves
• Increase surface area for photosynthetic capacity
• Evolved twice Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Seed plants
• Lycophylls – single vascular strands supporting small Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms
leaves found in Lycophytes
• Euphylls (true leaves) – found in ferns and seed
plants
Tracheophytes: Roots, Stems, Leaves
• 40 million years between appearance of vascular tissue and true leaves
• Hypothesis – 90% drop in atmospheric CO2 360 MYA allowed for the increase in
leaf size
• Large horizontal leaves capture 200% more radiation than thin, axial leaves →
more photosynthetic capacity
• Drawback – high leaf temperature, can be lethal
• Stomata
• Enhance water movement out of the leaf, cooling the leaf
• Essential for gas exchange, density correlates with CO2 concentration, natural
selection favoured plants with higher stomatal densities
Tracheophytes: Roots, Stems, Leaves
• Seeds
• Highly resistant Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
• Contain food supply for young plant Seed plants

• Lycophytes and pterophytes do not have seeds Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

• Fruits in the flowering plants (angiosperms)

add a layer of protection to seeds and attract
animals that assist in seed dispersal,
expanding the potential range of the species
 Land plant innovations
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Chlorophytes Charophytes Liverworts Mosses Hornworts Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

Flowers
Fruits
Seeds
Euphylls
Stems, roots, leaves
Dominant sporophyte
Vascular tissue

Stomata
Multicellular embryo
Antheridia and archegonia
Cuticle
Plasmodesmata
Chlorophyll a and b
Ancestral alga
 Learning Objectives
• Explain features that differentiate lycophytes from bryophytes
• List features exhibited by pterophytes
• Contrast pterophyte and moss sporophytes
Lycophytes Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes

(club mosses) Lycophytes Ferns + Allies

Seed plants

Gymnosperms Angiosperms

• Earliest vascular plants, lack seeds

• Worldwide distribution – abundant in tropics, moist temperate regions
• Superficially resemble true mosses, but unrelated
• Sporophyte dominant, leafy stems
Pterophytes: Ferns and Tracheophytes
Euphyllophytes
Seed plants

relatives Lycophytes Ferns + Allies Gymnosperms Angiosperms

• Phylogenetic relationships among ferns and

their relatives is still being sorted out
• Common ancestor gave rise to 2 clades

• All form antheridia (sperm-producing) and

archegonia (egg-producing) – like bryophytes
and lycophytes
• All require free water for flagellated sperms
• In contrast, most seed plants have non-flagellated
sperms
Whisk ferns
• Found in tropics
• Sporophyte consists of evenly forking green
stems without true leaves or roots
• Gametophytes
• Colourless, <2mm to 18mm long
• Form symbiotic associations with fungi
• Some gametophytes develop elements of
vascular tissue
Horsetails
• 15 living species
• Sporophyte consists of ribbed, jointed
photosynthetic stems that arise from
branching rhizomes with roots at nodes
• Silica deposits in epidermal cells of stems
• Also called “scouring rushes” because
American pioneers used them to scrub This species, Equisetum
telmateia, forms two
pans kinds of erect stems;
one is green and
photosynthetic, the
other terminates in a
spore-producing cone
and is light brown.
scouring pads
Ferns
• Most abundant group of seedless
vascular plants
• About 11,000 species
• Coal formed from forests 300 MYA
• Flourish in a wide range of habitats,
with 75% in the tropics
• Conspicuous sporophyte (up to 5m or
longer) and much smaller
gametophyte are both photosynthetic
Fern reproduction
• Produce distinctive sporangia in clusters called sori on the back of the fronds
• Diploid spore mother cells in sporangia produce haploid spores by meiosis
• Spores germinate into gametophyte
• Rhizoids but not true roots – no vascular tissue
• Flagellated sperm
• Fern life cycle differs • Both the gametophyte
from that of a moss and the sporophyte
are photosynthetic
and can live
• Much greater independently.
development,
independence, and • Water is necessary for
dominance of the fertilization. Sperms
fern’s sporophyte are released on the
underside of the
gametophyte and
• Structurally more swim in moist soil to
complex than moss neighbouring
sporophyte, has gametophytes.
vascular tissue and
roots, stems, leaves • Spores are dispersed
by wind.

• Gametophyte lacks
vascular tissue
• Fern morphology
• Sporophytes have rhizomes
• Fronds (leaves) develop at the tip of the rhizome as tightly
rolled-up coils (“fiddleheads”)
 Question 1
Which of the following plant structures is not matched to its correct
function?
a) Stomata – allow gas transfer
b) Tracheids – allow the movement of water and minerals
c) Cuticle – prevents desiccation
d) All of the choices are matched correctly
 Question 2
Which of the following genera most likely directly gave rise to the land
plants?
a) Volvox
b) Chlamydomonas
c) Ulva
d) Chara
 Question 3
Which of the following would not be found in a bryophyte?
a) Mycorrhizal assocations
b) Rhizoids
c) Tracheid cells
d) Photosynthetic gametophytes
 Question 4
Which of the following statements is correct regarding the byrophytes?
a) The bryophytes represent a monophyletic clade
b) The sporophyte stage of all bryophytes is photosynthetic
c) Archegonium and antheridium represent haploid structures that
produce reproductive cells
d) Stomata are common to all bryophytes
 Question 5
Evolutionary innovations that increase desiccation tolerance include
a) Waxy cuticles
b) Abscisic acid-signalling pathways
c) Rhizoids
d) All the choices are correct
 Question 6
Which of the following statements about the pterophytes is accurate?
a) Horsetails and whisk ferns form a single clade
b) Ferns form a single clade
c) Whisk ferns have euphylls
d) All pterophytes have a dominant sporophyte generation