BIO 114 - Week 7 - Ferns

Ferns and relative have

20,000 spp

Silarian-Devonian explosion

most major morphological innovations

Gymnosperms abundant

Both wet and dry environments for blanketed with green plants for the first time

Angiosperms abundant

Diversification of flowering plants

Mosses, Hornworts and Liverworts

• Non-vascular plants

• Seedless

• “Roots” dont absorb water

• Reproduce through spores

Sphagnum Moss (Peat) Bogs can store ___ times more carbon than a forest

10

Rhizoids

Anchor plant but do not absord water

Stems and leaves

Lack vascular tissue (inefficient transport of nutrients)

Water

conducted on outside of stem via capillary action

Sugar

conducted slowly within ground tissue cells via diffusion

Gametophyte

produces gametes (egg and sperm), sexual reproduction

Sporophyte

produces spores inside a capsule, asexual reproduction, spores germinate into new moss gametophytes

Carboniferous period (360-300 MYA)

• Dominated by seedless vascular plants

• Vast swamp forests present

• Heat and pressure turned these areas into coal deposits (fossil fuel)

Photosynthesis products

phloem

Water and minerals

xylem

In Lycophytes

spores produce in cones

Selaginella bigelovii

Resurrection plant

Ferns that you see in nature are

sporophytes

Sporophytes

spore-producing part of a ferns life cycle

Fern spore (tiny single cell) develops into a

gametophyte

Gametophyte

very small plant with egg and sperm producing structures

Meiosis

Cell division that halves the number of chromosomes

Sporangia

Develop on fronds, produce many spores via meiosis, burst open and release spores

Antheridium

Produces many sperm (male gamete)

Archegonium

produces an egg cell (femal gamete)

Sperm are released and swim to an archegonium, fertilize the egg

zygote

After _______, the zygote cell divides many times and developed into a ________

fertilization, sporophyte

The sporophyte will grow

roots and fronds, and resemble ferns

Gaga marginata

Genus is named after Lady Gaga

Gaga

Lipfern group, native to Americas

Circinate vernation

Fern front development