The Evolutionary Diversification of Early Land Plants

泥盆纪是早期陆地植物多样化的时期，加拿大和缅因州的加斯佩半岛保存着这些原始物种的丰富化石记录。帕特里夏·根塞尔博士请求继续支持她收集、准备和描述那里发现的几种早期陆地植物谱系的代表。将使用电子显微镜和计算机辅助的薄片三维合成来研究和重建组织结构。将对可变性进行研究，以便更好地界定现有的物种和属。拟议的工作具有重要的影响，而不仅仅是要描述的样本。她的描述性工作将大大增加我们对这些植物的解剖和生长，以及它们的生态环境和进化关系的了解。这些观察将导致对祖先-后代关系的更复杂的分析，它们有可能重塑目前对早期陆地植物的分类。

The Devonian Period was a time of diversification among early land plants, and the Gaspe Penninsula of Canada and Maine hold a rich fossil record of these primitive groups. Dr. Patricia Gensel has requested continued support for her efforts to collect, prepare, and describe representatives of several of the early lineages of land plants found there. Electron microscoy and computer-aided 3-dimensional synthesis of thin sections will be used to study and reconstruct tissue structures. Variability will be studied in order to better delimit the species and genera present. The proposed work has important implications beyond the samples to be described. Her descriptive work will add significantly to our understanding of the anatomy and growth of these plants, and of their ecological circumstances and evolutionary relationships. These observations will lead to more sophisticated analyses of ancestor-descendant relationships, and they have potential to reshape the current classification of early land plants.