Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The identification of plant fossils in Cambrian strata is an uncertain area in the evolutionary history of plants because of the small and soft-bodied nature of these plants. It is also difficult in a fossil of this age to distinguish among various similar appearing groups with simple branching patterns, and not all of these groups are plants.
Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, [1] arguing that evolution in nature must be driven by natural selection, just as breeds of domestic animals and cultivars of crop plants were driven by artificial selection. [2] [3] Darwin's theory radically altered popular and scientific opinion about the development of life. [4]
[15] [16] The Moon's gravitational pull stabilised Earth's fluctuating axis of rotation, setting up regular climatic conditions favoring abiogenesis. [17] 4404 Ma Evidence of the first liquid water on Earth which were found in the oldest known zircon crystals. [18] 4280–3770 Ma Earliest possible appearance of life on Earth. [19] [20] [21] [22]
Land plants evolved from a group of freshwater green algae, perhaps as early as 850 mya, [3] but algae-like plants might have evolved as early as 1 billion years ago. [2] The closest living relatives of land plants are the charophytes, specifically Charales; if modern Charales are similar to the distant ancestors they share with land plants, this means that the land plants evolved from a ...
Leaf variegation with white spots may serve as camouflage in forest understory plants, where there is a dappled background; leaf mottling is correlated with closed habitats. Disruptive camouflage would have a clear evolutionary advantage in plants: they would tend to escape from being eaten by herbivores. Another possibility is that some plants ...
Surviving in the wild is no easy feat, but thanks to evolution, many animals evade their predators with a clever deception of the eyes. Since the beginning of time animals have either adapted or ...
The study of plant evolution attempts to explain how the present diversity of plants arose over geologic time. It includes the study of genetic change and the consequent variation that often results in speciation , one of the most important types of radiation into taxonomic groups called clades .
The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and extinct organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to the present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as Ga, for gigaannum) and evidence suggests that life emerged prior to 3.7 Ga. [1] [2] [3] The similarities among all known present-day species indicate that they have diverged through the ...