Abstract
Photosynthetic organisms are found in most of the branches of the eukaryotic tree of life, and these organisms have diverse life cycles. There has been a tendency toward dominance of the diploid phase of the life cycle in the land plant lineage, and recent analyses suggest a similar trend in the brown algae. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolutionary stability of different types of life cycle, and in some cases these hypotheses are supported by empirical studies. Molecular analyses are elucidating the regulatory molecules that control life cycle progression and are providing insights into the developmental pathways associated with the construction of each generation of the life cycle.
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Bourdareau, S., Mignerot, L., Heesch, S., Peters, A.F., Coelho, S.M., Cock, J.M. (2017). Alternation of Generations in Plants and Algae. In: Nuno de la Rosa, L., Müller, G. (eds) Evolutionary Developmental Biology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33038-9_58-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33038-9_58-1
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Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
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