A Year at the Forefront of Streptophyte Algal Evolution

TL;DR

This review summarizes recent discoveries about the evolution of streptophyte algae, ancestors of land plants, highlighting new insights and open questions.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of recent research on streptophyte algal evolution from July 2023 to June 2024.

Findings

Recent studies have provided mechanistic insights into ancient evolutionary events leading to land plants.

New discoveries and resources have been identified to better understand streptophyte algal evolution.

The review raises new questions for future research on streptophyte algae.

Abstract

Land plants originated from an algal ancestor ∼500 million years ago in one of the most important evolutionary events for life on Earth. Extant streptophyte algae, their closest living relatives, have subsequently received much attention to better understand this major evolutionary transition. Streptophyte algae occupy many different environments, have diverse genomes and display contrasting morphologies (e.g. unicellular, filamentous, three-dimensional). This has historically made inferring these evolutionary events challenging. This A Year at the Forefront Review focusses on research published between July 2023 and June 2024 and intends to provide a short overview of recent discoveries, innovations, resources, and hypotheses regarding streptophyte algal evolution. This work has provided mechanistic insights into ancient evolutionary events that prefigured the origin of land plants and raises new questions for future research into streptophyte algae.

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