Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3SZ, UK.
Biol Open. 2024 Sep 15;13(9). doi: 10.1242/bio.061673. Epub 2024 Sep 19.
Land plants originated from an algal ancestor ∼500 million years ago in one of the most important evolutionary events for life on Earth. Extant streptophyte algae, their closest living relatives, have subsequently received much attention to better understand this major evolutionary transition. Streptophyte algae occupy many different environments, have diverse genomes and display contrasting morphologies (e.g. unicellular, filamentous, three-dimensional). This has historically made inferring these evolutionary events challenging. This A Year at the Forefront Review focusses on research published between July 2023 and June 2024 and intends to provide a short overview of recent discoveries, innovations, resources, and hypotheses regarding streptophyte algal evolution. This work has provided mechanistic insights into ancient evolutionary events that prefigured the origin of land plants and raises new questions for future research into streptophyte algae.
陆地植物起源于大约 5 亿年前的一种藻类祖先，这是地球上生命最重要的进化事件之一。现存的石松类藻类是它们最接近的现存亲属，因此受到了更多的关注，以更好地理解这一主要的进化转变。石松类藻类栖息于许多不同的环境中，拥有多样化的基因组，并表现出不同的形态（例如单细胞、丝状、三维）。这在历史上使得推断这些进化事件具有挑战性。这篇年度前沿综述聚焦于 2023 年 7 月至 2024 年 6 月期间发表的研究，并旨在对石松类藻类进化的最新发现、创新、资源和假说提供简要概述。这项工作为陆地植物起源之前的古老进化事件提供了机制上的见解，并为未来对石松类藻类的研究提出了新的问题。
