Overview

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Academic contacts

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Offerings

MURDOCH-S1-INT-2018-ONGOING

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Other learning activities

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Learning activities

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Learning outcomes

1.

Identify all the major lineages in the plant kingdom, their morphological features and how they differ from each other

2.

Describe the major structural changes required to enable plants to move on to land

3.

Explain the current understanding of the evolutionary relationships among major plant lineages

4.

Understand the evolutionary concept of punctuated equilibrium and how this relates to plant evolution

5.

Understand the importance of combining fossil evidence with modern molecular phylogenetics to unravel the evolutionary history of plants

6.

Explain the importance of plate tectonics and environmental change in driving plant evolution

7.

Understand why there are not the same trends of mass extinctions in plant evolution as seen in animal evolution and the concept of living fossils.

Assessments

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Additional information

Unit content:The unit is organised so that the topics covered during the lectures are complimented with the material being viewed in the practical sessions. The first topic to be covered is the evolution of eukaryotes and algae through serial endosymbiosis. We then move onto the group of green algae from which land plants evolved along with early symbionts. Plant lineages are then considered in the order in which they evolved; Bryophytes, Lycophytes, Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms and lastly Angiosperms. Coinciding with the emergence of these plant groups are dedicated topics including fossils and fossil evidence, morphological features required to move onto land, drivers of plant evolution, living fossils, forests of the Carboniferous, Gondwanan vegetation and the evolution of heterospory and seeds.