被子植物SQUA类基因适应性进化的统计检测

SQUAMOSA(SQUA)类基因是MADS-box基因家族中参与花被发生发育的重要基因.测定了麻竹的SQUA基因序列并分析了被子植物中SQUA类基因的系统发育式样;采用相对速率检验、同义与非同义置换位点统计以及似然比检验方法,分析了单子叶和真双子叶植物最近共同祖先中SQUA基因发生基因重复后的进化速率与适应机制.结果表明:真双子叶植物分支中SQUA类基因的相对速率和同义与非同义置换位点均显著高于单子叶植物分支;同时, dN/dS值表明真双子叶植物分支中可能存在正选择压力.     

DELLA基因家族在被子植物中的系统演化关系

基于被子植物各主要分支代表类群的DELLA氨基酸序列，开展它们在被子植物中演化关系的系统发育分析.DELLA基因家族在双子叶植物早期演化阶段经历了一次复制事件，形成2大分支，每支都包含相应的蔷薇类和菊类；单子叶植物没有经历早期的复制事件，所有的DELLA基因聚在一起形成单一的支系.另外，证实了在被子植物的双子叶植物中存在第3个DELLA基因支系.     

我国发现迄今最早真双子叶被子植物化石

最近在我国辽宁凌源早白垩世义县组中部首次发现迄今最早的真双子叶被子植物大化石,时代距今约1.24亿年。这一古老的真双子叶植物非常接近现生的毛茛科,是我国乃至全球迄今最早的与现生被子植物有直接系统演化联系的被子植物化石。真双子叶植物(Eudicots)是被子植物的主要分支之一,以具有三沟型花     

四川省苔类植物新记录

在对四川省王朗自然保护区的野外调查和标本采集鉴定的基础上,现已知该地区有苔类植物23科,33属,81种(包括2个亚种3个变种).其中8科,11属的16种为四川省苔类植物新记录种,且耳坠苔属(Ascidiota)为四川新记录属.就新记录属、种进行详细报道,为中国和四川省的苔藓植物区系研究提供新的资料.     

泰山苔藓植物的初步研究

本文首次报道了泰山苔藓植物137种(含3变种),隶属于67属,30科。其中藓类植物22科,57属,121种,2变种;苔类植物8科,10属,13种,1变种。本文在分类的基础上,对其生态类群地理成分等方面亦作了初步分析讨论。最后附有泰山苔藓植物名录。     

陆生植物的起源和维管植物的早期演化

陆生植物的起源和演化是地球生命中的重大事件,它影响到地球上所有的其他生命和全球环境。在过去的20年中,从中奥陶世历经整个志留纪至早泥盆世的岩层中,化石植物(微化石和大化石)的新发现改变了人们对陆生植物起源的认识,并且为陆生植物和维管植物早期演化分异提供了基部类群分化的时间框架。据此人们识别出地史中的3个陆生植物的时代：始胚植物时代、始维管植物时代和真维管植物时代。另一方面,分子系统的研究使人们深入认识了植物的系统发育和早期分支。通过比较形态学研究和基因序列的共同努力,建立了植物系统发育树。总结了最近的进展和新的认识,评价了基于分支分析的系统发育研究。     

山东苔藓植物研究（Ⅱ）

本文首次系统报导了山东苔藓植物410种,隶属于150属56科。其中,苔类植物24科36属83种(含1亚种2变种);藓类植物32科144属327种(含3亚种12变种)。     

遵义市区苔藓植物区系研究

通过对采自遵义市两城区凤凰山、三阁公园、湘江河道及丁字口等区域的苔藓植物标本共150号进行鉴定,得到遵义市区共有苔藓植物19科41属70种(含亚、变种,下同),其中藓类植物15科37属66种,苔类植物4科4属4种。丛藓科Pottiaceae、真藓科Bryaceae、灰藓科Hypnaceae和青藓科Brachytheciaceae为该地区的优势科,构成该区苔藓植物的主体,对该区苔藓植物进行区系分析,北温带和东亚成分均占该区苔藓植物总数(不含世界分布)的31.34%,其次是中国特有成分,占该区域苔藓植物总数的13.43%,说明该区域苔藓植物总体是温带性质的。     

环境变化对山东苔类植物影响的研究

为了研究环境变化对山东苔类植物的影响,考察了1998年以前和2008年以后的山东苔类植物区系构成情况.经对比发现近10年以来山东苔类植物的种类明显减少.从温度、降水、海平面、植被、土壤、水和大气等自然环境因子的变化以及人为因素对苔类植物的影响进行了分析,以解释山东苔类植物减少的原因,从而唤起社会的环境保护意识.     

浙江省苔类植物新记录

为了更加全面地了解华东地区苔藓植物的多样性,在对华东地区黄山—天目山脉及仙霞岭—武夷山脉的苔藓植物进行系统调查和标本采集的过程中,发现了浙江省苔类植物新记录种18个,分别隶属于10科13属,其中服部苔属(Hattoria)为浙江新记录属.对新记录种的生境、地理分布和主要识别特征进行了讨论,并提供了珍稀及特有种类的图版.这些新发现进一步丰富了浙江省苔藓植物区系,提供了新的基础资料.     

A eudicot from the Early Cretaceous of China

The current molecular systematics of angiosperms recognizes the basal angiosperms and five major angiosperm lineages: the Chloranthaceae, the magnoliids, the monocots, Ceratophyllum and the eudicots, which consist of the basal eudicots and the core eudicots. The eudicots form the majority of the angiosperms in the world today. The flowering plants are of exceptional evolutionary interest because of their diversity of over 250,000 species and their abundance as the dominant vegetation in most terrestrial ecosystems, but little is known of their very early history. In this report we document an early presence of eudicots during the Early Cretaceous Period. Diagnostic characters of the eudicot fossil Leefructus gen. nov. include simple and deeply trilobate leaves clustered at the nodes in threes or fours, basal palinactinodromous primary venation, pinnate secondary venation, and a long axillary reproductive axis terminating in a flattened receptacle bearing five long, narrow pseudo-syncarpous carpels. These morphological characters suggest that its affinities are with the Ranunculaceae, a basal eudicot family. The fossil co-occurs with Archaefructus sinensis and Hyrcantha decussata whereas Archaefructus liaoningensis comes from more ancient sediments. Multiple radiometric dates of the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation place the bed yielding this fossil at 122.6-125.8 million years old. The earliest fossil records of eudicots are 127 to 125 million years old, on the basis of pollen. Thus, Leefructus gen. nov. suggests that the basal eudicots were already present and diverse by the latest Barremian and earliest Aptian.     

Ancestral polyploidy in seed plants and angiosperms

Whole-genome duplication (WGD), or polyploidy, followed by gene loss and diploidization has long been recognized as an important evolutionary force in animals, fungi and other organisms, especially plants. The success of angiosperms has been attributed, in part, to innovations associated with gene or whole-genome duplications, but evidence for proposed ancient genome duplications pre-dating the divergence of monocots and eudicots remains equivocal in analyses of conserved gene order. Here we use comprehensive phylogenomic analyses of sequenced plant genomes and more than 12.6 million new expressed-sequence-tag sequences from phylogenetically pivotal lineages to elucidate two groups of ancient gene duplications-one in the common ancestor of extant seed plants and the other in the common ancestor of extant angiosperms. Gene duplication events were intensely concentrated around 319 and 192 million years ago, implicating two WGDs in ancestral lineages shortly before the diversification of extant seed plants and extant angiosperms, respectively. Significantly, these ancestral WGDs resulted in the diversification of regulatory genes important to seed and flower development, suggesting that they were involved in major innovations that ultimately contributed to the rise and eventual dominance of seed plants and angiosperms.     

Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants

Most of the 470-million-year history of plants on land belongs to bryophytes, pteridophytes and gymnosperms, which eventually yielded to the ecological dominance by angiosperms 90 Myr ago. Our knowledge of angiosperm phylogeny, particularly the branching order of the earliest lineages, has recently been increased by the concurrence of multigene sequence analyses. However, reconstructing relationships for all the main lineages of vascular plants that diverged since the Devonian period has remained a challenge. Here we report phylogenetic analyses of combined data--from morphology and from four genes--for 35 representatives from all the main lineages of land plants. We show that there are three monophyletic groups of extant vascular plants: (1) lycophytes, (2) seed plants and (3) a clade including equisetophytes (horsetails), psilotophytes (whisk ferns) and all eusporangiate and leptosporangiate ferns. Our maximum-likelihood analysis shows unambiguously that horsetails and ferns together are the closest relatives to seed plants. This refutes the prevailing view that horsetails and ferns are transitional evolutionary grades between bryophytes and seed plants, and has important implications for our understanding of the development and evolution of plants.     

Evolution of genetic mechanisms controlling petal development.

Molecular genetic studies in Arabidopsis thaliana and other higher-eudicot flowering plants have led to the development of the 'ABC' model of the determination of organ identity in flowers, in which three classes of gene, A, B and C, are thought to work together to determine organ identity. According to this model, the B-class genes APETALA3 (AP3) and PISTILLATA (PI) act to specify petal and stamen identity. Here we test whether the roles of these genes are conserved throughout the angiosperms by analysing the expression of AP3 and PI orthologues in the lower eudicot subclass Ranunculidae. We show that, although expression of these orthologues in the stamens is conserved, the expression patterns in the petals differ from those found in the higher eudicots. The differences between these expression patterns suggest that the function of AP3 and PI homologues as B-class organ-identity genes is not rigidly conserved among all angiosperms. These observations have important implications for understanding the evolution of both angiosperm petals and the genetic mechanisms that control the identities of floral organs.     

贵州肇兴侗布制作工艺及民族植物学研究

侗族人民千百年来,一直从事侗布的制作.我们对贵州肇兴的侗布制作进行了民族植物学研究,发现侗布的制作工艺繁杂,不同的人所用的植物有所差异,侗布制作共涉及植物17种,分属13科17属.有些侗布用植物属首次报道.     

苏铁在种子植物进化中的位置：分子生物学的证据

用大分子rRNA快速测序法测定了苏铁(Cycas revoluta Thunb.)、水松[Glyptos-trobus pensilis(Staunt.)Koch]和南方红豆杉[Taxus mairei(Lemee et Levl)S.Y.Hu]三种裸子植物Ls-rRNA5′端区108个核苷酸的序列。用这些数据构建的rRNA系统树揭示了苏铁与水松和南方红豆杉构成一个关系密切的姐妹群,而所分析的被子植物都为另一自然类群。另以绿藻作为种子植物群外参照物种,表明苏铁这一位置并不是由于一个特异的进化速度所造成的。这一结果支持了苏铁与松杉类为一自然群类,它们的分歧发生在裸子植物与被子植物分歧之后的假说。     

温州珍稀濒危植物资源及保护对策

据调查统计，浙江温州国家珍稀濒危植物34种，隶属22科30属，其中蕨类植物3种，裸子植物7种，被子植物24种，1级保护植物3种，2级保护植物31种。分析了这些珍稀濒危植物的生物学特性，并提出了相应的保护对策。     

Statistical analysis on adaptive evolution of SQUA genes in angiosperms

SQUAMOSA (SQUA) subfamily includes important perianth identity genes of MADS-box gene family. SQUA genes of Dendrocalamus latiflorus were sequenced, and phylogenetic form on SQUA genes in angiosperms was analyzed. Relative rate and adaptive evolution after SQUA gene duplication in recent common ancestor of monocots and eudicots were analyzed using the methods of relative rate test, statistic on synonymous and non-synonymous coden substitution sites and likelihood rate test. The results show that both of relative rate and synonymous and non-synonymous coden substitution in eudicot clade are significantly higher than those in monocot clade, and the value of dN/ds uncovered possible positive selective pressure in eudicot clade.     

Jaws and teeth of the earliest bony fishes

Extant jawed vertebrates, or gnathostomes, fall into two major monophyletic groups, namely chondrichthyans (cartilaginous fishes) and osteichthyans (bony fishes and tetrapods). Fossil representatives of the osteichthyan crown group are known from the latest Silurian period, 418 million years (Myr) ago, to the present. By contrast, stem chondrichthyans and stem osteichthyans are still largely unknown. Two extinct Palaeozoic groups, the acanthodians and placoderms, may fall into these stem groups or the common stem group of gnathostomes, but their relationships and monophyletic status are both debated. Here we report unambiguous evidence for osteichthyan characters in jaw bones referred to the late Silurian (423-416-Myr-old) fishes Andreolepis hedei and Lophosteus superbus, long known from isolated bone fragments, scales and teeth, and whose affinities to, or within, osteichthyans have been debated. The bones are a characteristic osteichthyan maxillary and dentary, but the organization of the tooth-like denticles they bear differs from the large, conical teeth of crown-group osteichthyans, indicating that they can be assigned to the stem group. Andreolepis and Lophosteus are thus not only the oldest but also the most phylogenetically basal securely identified osteichthyans known so far.     

Assessing the redundancy of MADS-box genes during carpel and ovule development

Carpels are essential for sexual plant reproduction because they house the ovules and subsequently develop into fruits that protect, nourish and ultimately disperse the seeds. The AGAMOUS (AG) gene is necessary for plant sexual reproduction because stamens and carpels are absent from ag mutant flowers. However, the fact that sepals are converted into carpelloid organs in certain mutant backgrounds even in the absence of AG activity indicates that an AG-independent carpel-development pathway exists. AG is a member of a monophyletic clade of MADS-box genes that includes SHATTERPROOF1 (SHP1), SHP2 and SEEDSTICK (STK), indicating that these four genes might share partly redundant activities. Here we show that the SHP genes are responsible for AG-independent carpel development. We also show that the STK gene is required for normal development of the funiculus, an umbilical-cord-like structure that connects the developing seed to the fruit, and for dispersal of the seeds when the fruit matures. We further show that all four members of the AG clade are required for specifying the identity of ovules, the landmark invention during the course of vascular plant evolution that enabled seed plants to become the most successful group of land plants.