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University of Florida Botanists Help Create 'Supertree' of Evolution for Flowering Plants
AScribe Newswire ^ | 02 February 2004 | Staff

Posted on 02/05/2004 1:35:13 PM PST by PatrickHenry

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Feb. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- A group of scientists has created the first comprehensive evolutionary reconstruction of the many families of flowering plants, an achievement that could aid in the search for plant-based cures for diseases and improve agricultural crops. The group, which includes two University of Florida botanists, will publish its results today in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

UF botany Professor Doug Soltis said flowering plants are the largest group of plants, comprising at least 250,000 species, with the oldest originating at least 130 million years ago. Encompassing nearly all grain and vegetable crops, they are also by far the most nutritionally and economically important plants.

Specialists in flowering plants, known scientifically as angiosperms, have created hundreds of "phylogenetic trees" - evolutionary lineages outlining which species predate and give rise to others - for specific groups.

Until now, however, no one had merged them all into one "supertree" mapping out the entire history of flowering plants.

"This is the first crack at it," said Soltis, who co-authored the paper with Pamela Soltis, a curator at UF's Florida Museum of Natural History, and four British authors. "Now, we can take this and keep building on it and building on it. If we get enough data, eventually, years down the road, we can get all these 250,000 species of angiosperms into one (evolutionary) tree."

From a scientific perspective, the feat is important partly because it appears to help settle a longstanding debate about how flowering plants diversified into the extraordinarily varied forms they represent today, said Pam Soltis, who also is Doug Soltis' wife. Both researchers are members of the UF Genetics Institute.

Famed biologist Charles Darwin first recognized that flowering plants underwent an extraordinarily rapid period of diversification early in their history more than 100 million years ago, she said. He was puzzled about what caused this diversification, calling it an "abominable mystery."

Since then, scientists have debated whether that and similar diversification events resulted from key innovations - important changes to plants' physiology or shape that encouraged their success and subsequent speciation - or rather from a series of smaller, less obvious or significant changes. For example, some have argued the appearance of the flower itself is a key innovation that spurred the success of flowering plants, while others have said the flower may represent several different innovations.

Pam Soltis said the supertree appears to come down on the side of many different innovations versus few significant or key innovations.

"When we look at those places within flowering plants where diversification has been high, there's nothing obvious that jumps out at us as some big morphological innovation at that point," she said.

Doug Soltis said the supertree is also important because it adds to a widespread effort to create similar trees for other large groups of species. Eventually, the goal is to create a comprehensive cross-species "tree of life," locking into place the evolutionary history and context of all living organisms, he said. The UF supertree research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation, which is also supporting the "tree of life" effort.

From a more practical perspective, the flowering plant tree may prove useful to both medical and agricultural scientists, he added.

"If, for example, you find that a particular cancer-curing drug is in a particular plant, you might want to know, 'Where else can I find that chemical?,'" he said. "Because close relatives usually do similar things, you would begin your search at that place in the tree."

"It's also very useful if you are involved in crop plants. You might want to know, 'What are the closest wild relatives to crop plants?' because you might go to those plants to find a gene that would help you improve disease resistance. We really can learn a lot by knowing how different species are related."

Doug Soltis said scientists build the trees using molecular data from the gene sequences of different species of plants. The Soltis' contribution to the supertree project was to gather and merge all the many different trees using computer-driven algorithms, or formulas designed to merge large amounts of molecular data.

"This is an interesting marriage of biology and math," Doug Soltis said. "The mathematicians have really set the stage for supertrees."

So far, the tree hasn't upended any major theories, but it has confirmed scientists' conclusions that certain plants are indeed the oldest ancestors of others, he said.

The other authors of the paper are scientists at the Silwood Park Campus of the Imperial College London in Berkshire, England, and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: biology; botany; crevolist; darwin; evolution
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Bold and underscore added by your humble poster.
1 posted on 02/05/2004 1:35:14 PM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: *crevo_list; VadeRetro; jennyp; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Physicist; LogicWings; ...
PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]
2 posted on 02/05/2004 1:35:58 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Theory: a comprehensible, falsifiable, cause-and-effect explanation of verifiable facts.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Bold and underscore added by your humble poster.

And quite right too; I wonder will we be hearing from those who say evolution is not fundamental to biological and medical research?

3 posted on 02/05/2004 1:36:54 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: PatrickHenry
YEC INTREP - SCIENCE - BIOLOGY - BOTANY - EVOLUTION
4 posted on 02/05/2004 1:37:16 PM PST by LiteKeeper
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To: Right Wing Professor
Absent evolutionary theory, how does one explain the tree structure. No lawn here.
5 posted on 02/05/2004 1:38:57 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: PatrickHenry
Somewhere in this research there has to be a cockroach. UF leads the world in cockroaches.
6 posted on 02/05/2004 1:39:17 PM PST by js1138
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To: PatrickHenry


7 posted on 02/05/2004 1:41:23 PM PST by balrog666 (Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.)
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To: Right Wing Professor
I wonder will we be hearing from those who say evolution is not fundamental to biological and medical research?

A "creation scientist" could also locate useful genes, but only by making a full-scale search of every organism on earth. (After all, separate species aren't really related, are they?) Evolution, on the other hand, certainly helps to make the search for useful genes a whole lot easier. Which is what a good theory is supposed to do. Sudden thought: have any "creation scientists" ever discovered anything by applying the knowledge gained from their peculiar "science"? Anything at all?

8 posted on 02/05/2004 1:44:18 PM PST by PatrickHenry (Theory: a comprehensible, falsifiable, cause-and-effect explanation of verifiable facts.)
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To: PatrickHenry
Time for creationists to raise the bar again. But then they don't like plants anyway.
9 posted on 02/05/2004 2:04:26 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: PatrickHenry
Goodness. Not only does this mean that scientists are not abandoning evolution in droves, but that the Theory of Evolution is useful!
10 posted on 02/05/2004 2:05:37 PM PST by Junior (No animals were harmed in the creation of this post)
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To: PatrickHenry
Sudden thought: have any "creation scientists" ever discovered anything by applying the knowledge gained from their peculiar "science"? Anything at all?

You are in sooooo much trouble. You better have an asbestos modem and a pyrex screen. Tungsten cored speakers are ooptional.
11 posted on 02/05/2004 2:07:21 PM PST by DeepDish (This space for rent.)
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
Plants aren't mentioned as being on Noah's Ark, so they didn't survive the Flood. Any flower you might see is simply a figment of your imagination and should be ignored.
12 posted on 02/05/2004 2:08:32 PM PST by Junior (No animals were harmed in the creation of this post)
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To: Junior
Didn't you know that all plant seeds can be stored indefinitely in water? That's the real reason irrigation canals are dug. ;)
13 posted on 02/05/2004 2:15:22 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Absent evolutionary theory, how does one explain the tree structure.

Circular reasoning.

14 posted on 02/05/2004 2:25:52 PM PST by lasereye
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To: PatrickHenry
Thanks for the interesting article! I appreciate reading it. I like plants!

I'm not sure why a creationist couldn't figure out that two plants are more similar to each other than two others. The "discussion" in this thread is kind of silly. Just throwing out unfounded statements rather than seriously examining what's being said.

This tree is a complex method of aligning similarities, it's not showing that anything ever changed into something different. I'm not sure how looking at things and deciding what is similar and what is not (remember doing that in kindergarten?) is a key component of evolution and not related to creation.
15 posted on 02/05/2004 3:26:52 PM PST by Iowa_Clone (Iowa = beautiful land)
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To: PatrickHenry
Is it just me or is it ironic that the supertree of evolution had to be created?
16 posted on 02/05/2004 3:30:29 PM PST by AD from SpringBay (We have the government we allow and deserve.)
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To: PatrickHenry
A group of scientists has created the first comprehensive evolutionary reconstruction of the many families of flowering plants, an achievement that could aid in the search for plant-based cures for diseases and improve agricultural crops.

Of course, if there's nothing to this "common descent" business, there's no usefulness in the exercise. "Evolutionists are always making trees. Yada yada yada."

17 posted on 02/05/2004 3:42:32 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: farmfriend
ping
18 posted on 02/05/2004 3:47:47 PM PST by Libertarianize the GOP (Ideas have consequences)
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To: PatrickHenry
Nice try! That should read "Theoretical Supertree" based on the THEORY of Evolution. Soon as you cats show up with the definitive proof we can dig Darwin up and tell he was right. Until then,...........................
19 posted on 02/05/2004 4:07:55 PM PST by Doc Savage
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To: PatrickHenry; Ace2U; Alamo-Girl; Alas; alfons; alphadog; amom; AndreaZingg; Anonymous2; ...
Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.
20 posted on 02/05/2004 4:55:29 PM PST by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
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