- A comprehensive study led by scientists from Freiburg and Beijing has characterized the adaptations of the moss Takakia to high altitudes and documented its population decline.
- The moss Takakia is exposed to extreme conditions such as frost and high UV radiation in the Himalayas. The current study identifies the adaptations that protects it from these extreme environmental influences, and reconstructs its evolution.
- Takakia is the oldest living genus of land plants. Comparison with fossils shows that its appearance has remained unchanged for at least 165 million years. As part of the study, the genome of Takakia lepidozioides was completely sequenced for the first time.
- Over a 10-year period, the researchers documented the decline of Takakia populations on the Tibetan Plateau, as well as a significant increase in average temperatures and retreat of a nearby glacier.
- The research team comprises 61 scientists from 20 institutes and six countries. It was led by Prof. Dr. Ralf R
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IMAGE: Illustration of a tree representing the legume family tree with branches representing the six subfamilies. On each branch are flowers or pods of species belonging to the subfamilies. The lines. view more
Credit: Yiyong Zhao, Chien-Hsun Huang, and Hong Ma
The most comprehensive study of the family tree for legumes, the plant family that includes beans, soybeans, peanuts, and many other economically important crop plants, reveals a history of whole-genome duplications. The study also helps to uncover the evolution of genes involved in nitrogen fixation a key trait likely important in the evolutionary spread and diversification of legumes and vital for their use as green manure in agriculture. To reconstruct the family tree, researchers compared the DNA sequence of more than 1500 genes from 463 different legume species, including 391 newly sequenced species, that span the diversity of this large plant family.
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