Coordination Funds

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jan de Vries
• Subject Area: Evolution and Systematics of Plants and Fungi ; Plant Biochemistry and Biophysics ; Plant Genetics and Genomics ; Organismic Interactions, Chemical Ecology and Microbiomes of Plant Systems ; Plant Physiology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 528076711

One of the most remarkable challenges mastered by plants was the water-to-land-transition (plant terrestrialisation) that occurred more than 500 million years ago. This change in habitat required molecular adaptations to cope with an array of new stresses. Plant terrestrialisation transformed Earth’s atmosphere and soil cover, priming Earth for life as we know it. The Phragmoplastophyta comprise three lineages of streptophyte algae and the land plants (Embryophyta). Evolving from within the streptophytes, the earliest land plants gained features such as stomata as well as the cuticle and made use of fungal symbioses to gain access to nutrients. These traits are thought to have been instrumental for the habitat transition of plant life. Initially morphologically simple plants evolved a complexity that allowed them to conquer ever more habitats. In MAdLand, we use a comparative and functional evolutionary approach, encompassing streptophyte algae and non-seed plants as models, to study the genetic mechanisms underpinning the dramatic environmental adaptation to conditions on land and the evolution of plant complexity. During the first funding period of MAdLand, we already pinpointed important genetic mechanisms in adaptive evolution of plant morphology, physiology, biochemistry, cell biology and biotic interactions – and identified the ancestry of processes from which the diversity of land plants evolved. Now, in the second period, we will scrutinise these genetic mechanisms in light of streptophyte diversification with the aid of the new resources now established. These data will be used to infer properties of the most recent common ancestors of all land plants as well as those shared by land plants and their algal relatives. In MAdLand, we will address key questions in plant evolution: Which features enabling the conquest of land evolved in streptophyte algae? What is the nature of the most recent common ancestor of (i) all extant land plants and (ii) of land plants and algae? What is the succession and nature of molecular adaptations in early land plant evolution? How did embryogenesis and the alternation of generations evolve? How did organismic interaction of plants with fungi and bacteria evolve? What are the molecular evolutionary drivers of tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses? Using a broad suite of biological methods and cross-discipline knowledge ranging from phylogenetic, molecular, physiological, genetic and cell biological approaches to the study of organismic interaction and biodiversity, we will study the following representatives of major non-seed plant lineages: (a) emerging model system Chara braunii (Charopyhceae), Spirogyra pratensis, Mesotaenium endlicherianum, and Zygnema circumcarinatum (Zygnematophyceae), Anthoceros agrestis (hornwort), Riccia fluitans (liverwort) Ceratopteris richardii, and Azolla filiculoides (ferns); the (b) established model systems Marchantia polymorpha (liverwort) and Physcomitrium patens (moss).

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 2237: MAdLand — Molecular Adaptation to Land: plant evolution to change