Sometime around 140 million eld ago the first flowering flora come along . soon afterward , its posterity spread to most locations on Earth , displacing other flora coinage from the legal age of ecosystems . Darwin described their winner as an “ abominable mystery ” – one it seems we might at last have solved .
efflorescence plant life ( angiosperms ) have been known for X to be more efficient than legacy from earlier times like fern or conifers ; probably an even bigger part of their achiever than their pollination alliance with insects . This efficiency , in turn , is the final result of leaves better fit to transporting water and absorbing carbon dioxide than the acerate leaf of pine trees or the fronds of ferns . However , these discoveries just push the closed book back two steps . Why is it that other plant groups could n’t match the conversion of sunshine that flowering plants achieve ?
Dr Kevin Simoninof San Francisco State University andDr Adam Roddyof Yale University claim to have an solvent . After compare the genomes , cellphone , and leaf pore concentration of 400 mintage , they impute efficient leaf design to the smaller genomes anthesis plant possess . As noted inPLOS Biology , each cell of a living thing must comprise a written matter of its deoxyribonucleic acid , so a enceinte genome prevents the establishment of small cell . Since some plants have genomes almost a thousand clip larger than those of other coinage , the effect is considerable .
These small prison cell , in turn , countenance for speciality . If prison cell are too large , a flora ca n’t check many dissimilar sorts into a small space . Small cell allowed for the presence of legion smaller vein and stomata with which plants transport piddle and substitution gas with the air . " The flowering plants are the most important mathematical group of industrial plant on earth , and now we finally know why they have been so successful , " the author claimed in astatement .
There is another benefit to smaller mobile phone ; the high ratio of surface area to volume for each prison cell makes for more efficient obstetrical delivery of water and nutrients . Not all flowering plants have small genomes – the reach in size of it is enormous – but most angiosperms have deoxyribonucleic acid contentedness far little than that of the little non - flowering industrial plant .
precisely why flowering industrial plant developed this genome - shrinking capacity , while other plant never did , remains a whodunit , if not an abominable one . The authors are also rum as to how other plants , despite their disadvantage , have contend to hold onto some ecological corner . For model , conifers dominate the large forests of the Northern Hemisphere ’s higher latitudes . Did these mintage survive despite their big genomes , or were there even off advantage hide in all that supernumerary DNA ?
