| Abstract Detail
Colloquium: Assembling the Tree of Life Colloquium Wickett, Norman J. [1], Huizenga, Cassandra A. [2], Forrest, Laura L. [2], Goffinet, Bernard [2]. Plastid genomes on the liverwort tree of life: challenges and progress. Recent evidence supports the hypothesis that liverworts are sister to all other land plants. As such, they occupy a critical position for understanding the transition of green plants from an aquatic to a terrestrial environment. Through the Liverwort Tree of Life project, we will refine our hypotheses of their branching order, which is essential not only to the reconstruction of ancestral states in the earliest land plants, but also to frame the testing of evolutionary hypotheses within liverworts. Complete plastid genome sequences can add support to these phylogenies, and also illuminate novel evolutionary patterns for further investigation. A comparative analysis of liverwort plastid genomes revealed that plastid-encoded sulfate import proteins-coding genes (cysA and cysT) are represented by three states: present (and presumably functional), absent, or pseudogene. Here, we reconstruct the evolutionary history of these genes in liverworts. We also discuss the challenges in, and progress towards sequencing additional liverwort plastid genomes using both traditional and next-generation sequencing methods.
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1 - Pennsylvania State University, Department of Biology, 403 Life Sciences Building, University Park, Pennsylvania, 16802, USA
2 - University of Connecticut, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 75 N. Eagleville Rd., Storrs, CT, 06269-3043, USA
Keywords:
bryophytes
liverworts
chloroplast genome
plastid genome
early land plants.
Presentation Type: Symposium or Colloquium Presentation
Session: C1
Location: Cottonwood C/Snowbird Center
Date: Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM
Number: C1001
Abstract ID:775 |
