In lab group last week we read an article about the moss family Polytrichiaceae. These are the mosses that have fabulous little lamellae on their leaves. Some species are quite common and can be found in open disturbed edge habitat. They can be recognized by their star-shaped form when viewed from above and they are often one of the largest mosses that you will see in the field.
Bell, Neil E. and Jaakko Hyvönen. 2010. Phylogeny of the moss class Polytrichopsida (BRYOPHYTA): Generic-level structure and incongruent gene trees. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 55: 381-398.
Species are typically grouped into the larger category of genera based on the morphology of the plants, their physical appearance. Thus all the members of the genus Atrichum (the smooth capped mosses) look similar to each other and the same for other genera such as Polytrichum (the hairy capped moss). Sometimes it ends up that these morphological groupings are confirmed by the DNA sequence data and all the members of the genus did descend from a common ancestor. Other times the DNA data shows that the members are not descended from a recent common ancestor and are instead distantly related. The morphology and the DNA evidence tell a different story. In this study both Polytrichastrum and Oligotrichum are composed of members that are distantly related. The later genus has a distinct geographic pattern with all the northern members being related to each other and all the southern members in the other group. Overall I think that it is pretty cool to explore these morphological hypotheses with DNA data. You never know what there is to be found.
Another paper on this group of mosses by the same authors.
Bell, Neil E. and Jaakko Hyvönen. 2010 A phylogenetic circumscription of Polytrichastrum (Polytrichaceae): Reassessment of sporophyte morphology supports molecular phylogeny. American Journal of Botany 97: 566-578.
- Home
- Angry by Choice
- Catalogue of Organisms
- Chinleana
- Doc Madhattan
- Games with Words
- Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
- History of Geology
- Moss Plants and More
- Pleiotropy
- Plektix
- RRResearch
- Skeptic Wonder
- The Culture of Chemistry
- The Curious Wavefunction
- The Phytophactor
- The View from a Microbiologist
- Variety of Life
Field of Science
-
-
From Valley Forge to the Lab: Parallels between Washington's Maneuvers and Drug Development3 weeks ago in The Curious Wavefunction
-
Political pollsters are pretending they know what's happening. They don't.3 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
-
-
Course Corrections5 months ago in Angry by Choice
-
-
The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Catalogue of Organisms
-
The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Variety of Life
-
Does mathematics carry human biases?4 years ago in PLEKTIX
-
-
-
-
A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China5 years ago in Chinleana
-
Posted: July 22, 2018 at 03:03PM6 years ago in Field Notes
-
Bryophyte Herbarium Survey7 years ago in Moss Plants and More
-
Harnessing innate immunity to cure HIV8 years ago in Rule of 6ix
-
WE MOVED!8 years ago in Games with Words
-
-
-
-
post doc job opportunity on ribosome biochemistry!9 years ago in Protein Evolution and Other Musings
-
Growing the kidney: re-blogged from Science Bitez9 years ago in The View from a Microbiologist
-
Blogging Microbes- Communicating Microbiology to Netizens10 years ago in Memoirs of a Defective Brain
-
-
-
The Lure of the Obscure? Guest Post by Frank Stahl12 years ago in Sex, Genes & Evolution
-
-
Lab Rat Moving House13 years ago in Life of a Lab Rat
-
Goodbye FoS, thanks for all the laughs13 years ago in Disease Prone
-
-
Slideshow of NASA's Stardust-NExT Mission Comet Tempel 1 Flyby13 years ago in The Large Picture Blog
-
in The Biology Files
3 comments:
Markup Key:
- <b>bold</b> = bold
- <i>italic</i> = italic
- <a href="http://www.fieldofscience.com/">FoS</a> = FoS
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The concept of your blog is really very informative. I definitely share your views to my close friends keeps up the good work going.
ReplyDeleteThis is a nice looking feature, but it seems to be broken for me. I attempted the import, I provided my yahoo credentials, I agree to allow access to yahoo and I am shown a list of my delicious bookmarks. When I click the 'Import Checked Items' an error is displayed. "an error occurred parseerror: undefined.
ReplyDeleteAre you having trouble viewing the links to the papers? They should take you to the abstracts at the journal publisher. Otherwise I am not sure what you are trying to import.
Delete