Overview
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Learning activities
Learning outcomes
Compare all the major lineages in the plant kingdom, their morphological features and how they differ from each other
Explain the major structural changes required to enable plants to move on to land
Evaluate the current understanding of the evolutionary relationships among major plant lineages based on fossil evidence and molecular phylogenetics
Construct a timeline of the evolution of land plants and explain the influence of plate tectonics and global environmental change
Differentiate between mass extinctions in the plant and animal kingdoms and explain any differences
Assessments
Additional information
The unit is organised so that topics introduced during lectures are expanded upon with the material being viewed in the practical sessions and the exercises completed in the workshops. 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, Ferns, 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.