Living Relative Of First Land Plants Found

[Richard W Travsky <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/12/011214080951.htm

Some 470 million years ago, the first land plants emerged from prehistoric
waters, put down roots in soil and ended up ruling the plant world. But
scientists havent been certain about the family history of those pioneer
plants.

By studying gene sequences of common fresh water algae, a team of
University of Maryland researchers, funded by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) has traced this family tree and identified a group of
algae that are the closest living relatives of the first land plants. The
scientists have moved a step closer to understanding how land plants
evolved and came to dominate the terrestrial biosphere.
...
In a study published in the Dec. 14 issue of the journal Science, Maryland
scientist Charles Delwiche and doctoral student Kenneth Karol confirm that
the closest living relative of the first land plants is a group of green
algae called the Charales, which survives today in fresh water around the
world.

Although both the Charales and land plants can be traced back in the
fossil record over a period of more than 400 million years, their common
ancestor has been extinct for even longer and hasn't been identified in
the fossil record.

Our data confirm that land plants and the Charales both evolved from a
common ancestor that was a fairly complex organism, said Delwiche. We now
can make specific inferences about what this organism looked like. It
wasn't just some sort of amorphous pond scum. It was made up of branching
threads and reproduced with eggs and sperm.