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Heterospory evolved due to natural selection that favoured an increase in propagule size compared with the smaller spores of homosporous plants. [2] Heterosporous plants, similar to anisosporic plants [clarification needed], produce two different sized spores in separate sporangia that develop into separate male and female gametophytes.
The main difference between spores and seeds as dispersal units is that spores are unicellular, the first cell of a gametophyte, while seeds contain within them a developing embryo (the multicellular sporophyte of the next generation), produced by the fusion of the male gamete of the pollen tube with the female gamete formed by the ...
Most non-vascular plants, as well as many lycophytes and most ferns, are homosporous (only one kind of spore is produced). Some lycophytes, such as the Selaginellaceae and Isoetaceae, [7]: 7 the extinct Lepidodendrales, [8] and ferns, such as the Marsileaceae and Salviniaceae are heterosporous (two kinds of spores are produced).
As an illustration, consider a monoicous moss. Antheridia and archegonia develop on the mature plant (the gametophyte). In the presence of water, the biflagellate sperm from the antheridia swim to the archegonia and fertilisation occurs, leading to the production of a diploid sporophyte. The sporophyte grows up from the archegonium.
Water molecules stay close to each other , due to the collective action of hydrogen bonds between water molecules. These hydrogen bonds are constantly breaking, with new bonds being formed with different water molecules; but at any given time in a sample of liquid water, a large portion of the molecules are held together by such bonds. [61]
The self-ionization of water (also autoionization of water, autoprotolysis of water, autodissociation of water, or simply dissociation of water) is an ionization reaction in pure water or in an aqueous solution, in which a water molecule, H 2 O, deprotonates (loses the nucleus of one of its hydrogen atoms) to become a hydroxide ion, OH −.
Salviniales are all aquatic and differ from all other ferns in being heterosporous, meaning that they produce two different types of spore (megaspores and microspores) that develop into two different types of gametophyte (female and male gametophytes, respectively), and in that their gametophytes are endosporic, meaning that they never grow outside the spore wall and cannot become larger than ...
They included heterosporous water ferns (Salviniales) (placed in a separate subclass by Cronquist et al. due to their highly modified morphology) within the leptosporangiate ferns, which they elevated to the rank of class as the Polypodiopsida (published by Cronquist et al. to include all ferns).