Horizontal gene transfer from soil bacteria helped the ancestors of land plants

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“For hundreds of millions of years, green algae lived in freshwater environments that periodically fell dry, such as small puddles, river beds, and trickling rocks,” said Professor Michael Melkonian, from the University of Duisburg-Essen.

http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlar...atophyceae.jpg

The two algae, Spirogloea muscicola and Mesotaenium endlicherianum, are close unicellular relatives of the land plants.

So, plants did not evolve from seaweed that somehow crawled onto land. They evolved from single celled algae that already lived on land in ponds and small puddles that often dried up. And when they split from their relatives 580 million years ago, like the illustration in the article shows, they were still unicellular.

The real question then is when they evolved multicellularity. Either way, judging by the fossils available so far, it wasn't before 400 million years ago of so that we got plants that were more than just knee high.

[Kirby101]

Your title read like the spam threads that have been dumped here of late.
But cool post dude!

[Spike-X]

Well, ok then.

[Güicho]

“For hundreds of millions of years, green algae lived in freshwater environments that periodically fell dry, such as small puddles, river beds, and trickling rocks,” said Professor Michael Melkonian, from the University of Duisburg-Essen.

http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlar...atophyceae.jpg

The two algae, Spirogloea muscicola and Mesotaenium endlicherianum, are close unicellular relatives of the land plants.

So, plants did not evolve from seaweed that somehow crawled onto land. They evolved from single celled algae that already lived on land in ponds and small puddles that often dried up. And when they split from their relatives 580 million years ago, like the illustration in the article shows, they were still unicellular.

The real question then is when they evolved multicellularity. Either way, judging by the fossils available so far, it wasn't before 400 million years ago of so that we got plants that were more than just knee high.

Well, ok then.

[Banner]

Your title read like the spam threads that have been dumped here of late.
But cool post dude!

Thanks. Yeah, I noticed the title was a little too long, considering it ended up slightly amputated.