ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
The timescale of early land plant evolution.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 339 papers.
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339 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Replicating lipid micelles: a feasible precursor to the origin of life and the earliest appearance of genomes.Human genomics · 2026Review
- Abiotic sources of fixed nitrogen sustained early ecosystems for several hundred million years after the origin of life.Science advances · 2026Article
- How do the principal megabiases in the fossil record affect the discovery of past bryophyte diversity?Annals of botany · 2026Article
- The taphonomic puzzle of Notothylacites filiformis: reinterpretation of bryophyte fossils from the Late Cretaceous of Czechia reveals the co-occurrence of hornworts and liverworts.Annals of botany · 2026Article
- Evolutionary shifts in plant adaptation mediated by phytohormones.Plant communications · 2026Review
- Functional evolution and rewiring of the UVR8-BES1/BIM1 module underpin the refinement of UV-B responses during plant terrestrialization.Plant communications · 2026Article
- Endogenous viral elements trace the ancient origins and early evolution of the Caulimoviridae.PLoS pathogens · 2026Article
- Early evolutionary history of the seed.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
279 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Abstract
Establishing the timescale of early land plant evolution is essential for testing hypotheses on the coevolution of land plants and Earth's System. The sparseness of early land plant megafossils and stratigraphic controls on their distribution make the fossil record an unreliable guide, leaving only the molecular clock. However, the application of molecular clock methodology is challenged by the current impasse in attempts to resolve the evolutionary relationships among the living bryophytes and tracheophytes. Here, we establish a timescale for early land plant evolution that integrates over topological uncertainty by exploring the impact of competing hypotheses on bryophyte-tracheophyte relationships, among other variables, on divergence time estimation. We codify 37 fossil calibrations for Viridiplantae following best practice. We apply these calibrations in a Bayesian relaxed molecular clock analysis of a phylogenomic dataset encompassing the diversity of Embryophyta and their relatives within Viridiplantae. Topology and dataset sizes have little impact on age estimates, with greater differences among alternative clock models and calibration strategies. For all analyses, a Cambrian origin of Embryophyta is recovered with highest probability. The estimated ages for crown tracheophytes range from Late Ordovician to late Silurian. This timescale implies an early establishment of terrestrial ecosystems by land plants that is in close accord with recent estimates for the origin of terrestrial animal lineages. Biogeochemical models that are constrained by the fossil record of early land plants, or attempt to explain their impact, must consider the implications of a much earlier, middle Cambrian-Early Ordovician, origin.
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