Plants tend to hoard DNA, not throwing anything out. The extra genes they hold inside can mutate to produce new physical traits. Holding onto the extra genes increases the tempo of evolution for the ...
Determining the major drivers of species diversification and phenotypic innovation across the Tree of Life is one of the grand challeges in evolutionary biology. Facilitated by the Germplasm Bank of ...
A new study shows that DNA duplication has been vitally important throughout the evolutionary history of gymnosperms, a diverse group of seed plants that includes pines, cypresses, sequoias, ginkgos ...
ARGUABLY the world’s weirdest plant, Welwitschia mirabilis is a tangled mass of shredded, fraying leaves in the Namib desert. For a thousand years, perhaps more, it grows just two long leaves, which ...
BOTMAIN copy purchased with funds from the S. Dillon Ripley Endowment. Part 1. -- Aims, approaches and methodologies -- Part 2. -- Phylogenetic bases and revised taxonomic structure -- Part 3. -- ...
Gymnosperm means “naked seed” and comes from the same Greek root as gymnastics, which means to exercise naked. This group of plants is so named because the seeds are not enclosed inside an ovary, ...
Alienopteridae were originally proposed as a new insect order (Alienoptera) in 2016. At first, they were only found in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, but later specimens were also reported from Brazil ...
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Plants are DNA hoarders. Adhering to the maxim of never throwing anything out that might be useful later, they often duplicate their entire genome and hang on to the added ...