Exam 3 Flashcards
(98 cards)
What was the first group of plants that had branched sporophytes?
Rhyniophytes
What are some reasons sporophytes became dominant in land plants?
In order to compete for sunlight, plants needed to become taller. At the time that sporophytes became dominant, reproduction still required water for the sperm to be transferred to the egg. This happens more easily at ground level. So the gametophytes remained small and on the ground while the sporophytes grew tall to get more light. Another contributing factor is that sporophytes have 2 copies of each gene and are therefore protected from the effects of mutation.
What was the first group of land plants to have true stems? Which group of plants had the first true stems, roots, and leaves.
The Rhyniophytes had true stems.
The lycophytes have true stems, roots, and leaves.
Name three Lycophytes
Lycopodium, Selaginella (spike moss), Isoetes (quillwort)
What is the big difference between Lycophyte and Bryophyte lifecycles?
the Lycophyte generations are independent and the Sporophyte is dominant.
Selaginella, the spike moss, is a lycophyte. It is heterosporous and has a special structure that produces true roots. What is the name of that structure?
rhizophore
In Selaginella what are the two types of spores called?
Megaspores and microspores.
In Selaginella, where does fertilization take place?
In the archegonia in the gametophyte.
Name three types of plants in the Monilophytes.
True ferns, horsetails and whisk ferns
Psilotum is a whisk fern and is in the Monilophytes. It is homosporous and has.
true stems but not true leaves or true roots
Equisitum, horsetails, are Sphenophytes and belong to the Monilophytes. They are homosporous and have
true stems but not true leaves or roots
The largest group of Monilophytes is
true ferns
Characteristics for true ferns
-have a leptosporangium
-The spores germinate and grow into gametophytes
-the leaves have stomata
The word gymnosperm means
“naked seed”
-the seeds are borne on scales and fruit is not
present.
Gymnosperms are ______ dominant?
sporophyte
- the gametophyte is not free living so we say the
gametophyte is dependent.
Two major evolutionary advances that appear in the gymnosperms are
pollen and seeds
Conifers, Cycads, Gingkos, and Gnetophytes are all
gymnosperms, Trachiophytes (have true vascular tissue), and all have secondary growth (wood).
What is pollen?
The male gametophyte protected by the spore wall.
When did the earliest seed plants appear? Were humans around then?
-Around 400 million years ago.
-No, the first humans appeared around 200,000 years ago.
What is a seed?
It is a plant embryo, with some stored food, enclosed in a seed coat.
-The stored food in gymnosperms is primarily female gametophyte tissue.
-In angiosperms it is endosperm.
-In some angiosperms the endosperm is abundant (as in maize) in others the endosperm is almost completely used up by the time the seed matures (as in beans) and the stored food is present in the cotyledons.
What are the advantages to seeds?
-Think about the differences between young sporophytes of
ferns vs. pines. The young sporophytes in gymnosperms can be dormant, can be dispersed by wind or animals, and are protected. Those are advantages of producing seeds.
So,
- Young sporophytes no longer need to grow and photosynthesize immediately (it can go dormant.)
-The sporophyte can be dispersed by wind or animal vectors.
-Sporophyte is protected.
-The sporophytes of ferns are not dormant, they are not dispersed, they grow directly out of the gametophyte.
-Disadvantages: very costly to make
Ovule
this is the megasporangium (2n) surrounded by the integument (2n) before the ovule becomes a seed. All of this is diploid, the sporophyte produces a cell that undergoes meiosis.
Integument
protective covering of the ovule, sporophyte tissue that becomes the seed coat
Nucellus
The megasporangium is called a nucellus in seed plants, it is 2n sporophyte tissue and produces the megasporocyte that undergoes meiosis.