MMP011: Reexamining the emergence of land plants based on an analysis of the cell walls of charophycean green algae.

Host: Jeff Fox with special guests, Øjvind Moestrup, Peter Ulvskov, and Jesper Harholt.

Øjvind Moestrup and Peter Ulvskov, both at the University of Copenhagen and Jesper Harholt at Carlsberg Laboratory, also in Copenhagen, Denmark, talk with Jeff Fox about their hypothesis about terrestrial plants, based on analyses of the cell walls of charophycean green algae.

Moestrup, Peter Ulvskov, and Jesper Harholt thought that something was amiss with our current understanding of the evolutionary development of terrestrial plants after they carefully examined features of the cell walls of charophycean green algae. “Our hypothesis is simple,” they note. “Charophycean green algae ancestors were already living on land and had been doing so for some time before the emergence of land plants.” This new hypothesis takes issue with the widely accepted view that land plants originated from a charophycean green alga. "You have to be patient and sometimes pursue your crazy ideas, even when they differ from the dogmatic thinking in the field," Harholt says. "If you pile up enough evidence, at some point you may realize that you might be correct."

This story was featured in the March 2016 issue of Microbe Magazine.

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