Looking deeper into the algal sisters of land plants.

Deep radiations within Zygnematophyceae were uncovered, reshaping reconstructions of algal ancestry for land plants and revealing previously under-sampled internal diversity.

• Why it matters: The closest algal relatives of land plants have poorly characterized internal diversity, limiting how reliably researchers infer plant evolutionary history.
• What they did: The study in PLOS Biology used expanded sampling and phylogenetic analysis to examine diversification patterns within Zygnematophyceae.
• The result: The new evolutionary picture suggests existing ancestry reconstructions may need revision, enabling more accurate inference of how plant lineages relate to algal sisters.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.