Novel Lessons From Ancient Plants: water transport in the earliest tracheophytes

无籽维管植物如蕨类和木贼是现代植物群中最古老的谱系，起源于泥盆纪，值得注意的是，这些植物在以针叶树和被子植物为主的世界中仍然具有竞争力。 我们对木本植物的生理学了解很多，但如何解释无籽维管植物群的持续成功呢？ 拟议的研究的目标是通过生理学的透镜，特别是植物水的关系来检查蕨类植物和蕨类植物的盟友。 有效和有弹性的水分运输是植物成功的关键，但水分运输是否在无籽维管植物群的进化生理中发挥了作用仍然是未知的。该研究有几个目标，主要目标集中在物种的抗旱性，维管解剖，生境和生活史特征之间的关系，以及这些特征如何影响早期维管植物群的进化。 解剖学和生理学数据将被纳入一个现实的模型蕨类植物水运输，其结果将被用来通知一个大规模的采样工作在整个良好解决的蕨类植物进化树。这将提高目前的理解的方式，具体的特点促进了深时间的蕨类植物和蕨类植物的盟友多样化。 最后，这个项目将应用最近开发的模型的维管设计无籽维管植物，从而完成的选择压力的理解，推动所有维管植物群的运输网络的演变。 更广泛的影响包括高中和本科生参与一项以保护为基础的长期研究，研究红杉林下蕨类植物的表现，在当地服务不足的高中提供教学模块，以及在PI实验室指导本科生。

Seedless vascular plants such as ferns and horsetails are among the oldest lineages in the modern flora and with origins in the Devonian, it is remarkable that these plants remain competitive in a world dominated by conifers and angiosperms. Much is known about the physiology of woody plants, but what explains the continued success of the seedless vascular group? The goal of the proposed research is to examine the ferns and fern allies through the lens of physiology, specifically plant water relations. Efficient and resilient water transport is critical for plant success, but whether water transport played a role in the evolutionary physiology of seedless vascular flora remains unknown. The proposed research has several objectives with the overarching goals focusing on the relationships between species' drought resistance, vascular anatomy, habitat and life history traits, and how these features bear on the evolution of early vascular flora. Anatomical and physiological data will be incorporated into a realistic model of fern water transport, the results of which will be used to inform a large-scale sampling effort across the well-resolved evolutionary tree of ferns. This will improve present understanding of the manner in with which specific traits facilitated deep-time diversification of the ferns and fern allies. Lastly, this project will apply a recently developed model of vascular design to seedless vascular plants, and thus complete the understanding of the selection pressures driving the evolution of transport networks across all vascular flora. Broader impacts include high school and undergraduate participation in a conservation based, long-term study of fern performance in the redwood understory, teaching modules in local under-served high schools and the mentoring of undergraduate students in the PI's lab.