A major trend during the evolution of plants since the conquest of land some 500 million years ago is one of increasing complexity. However complex innovations are sometimes abandoned by species in favor of simpler and hence less costly traits. Extreme architectural simplification obscures the record of evolutionary history, making it difficult to identify traits that foster diversification and ecological success. The moss family Funariaceae underwent an explosive radiation about 20 million years ago, resulting in species spanning a broad range of morphological complexities. The evolutionary history of this family, inferred from extensive genomic data, will provide the framework to test the hypothesis that species with dramatically simplified morphologies can give rise to descendants with complex architectures.
This study focuses on the evolution of traits that helped plants adapt to land, and that are fundamental to their current ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Mosses fulfill important ecological roles in many ecosystems today, and understanding how their reproductive traits evolved over short periods of geological time provides insights into their potential to respond to future rapid global change. The concept of species with simplified morphologies being evolutionary dead ends is widely accepted but rarely tested, and unambiguous exampled from the plant kingdom are currently lacking.
