Study
The evolution of vegetative desiccation tolerance in land plants
Oliver, Melvin J.; Tuba, Zoltán; Mishler, Brent D.
Plant Ecology, 2000
Mapped desiccation tolerance onto land plant phylogeny and asked whether the trait in flowering plants is retained from early land plants or re-derived.
- Studied in
- Plantae
- Sample size
- comparative analysis across land plant lineages
Vegetative desiccation tolerance was probably present in the earliest land plants and retained in mosses, but in flowering plants it appears to have been re-evolved independently several times, most likely by redeploying the tolerance programme that seeds already use.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Resurrection plants did not keep an ancient capacity; they rebuilt it, by switching on in leaves a programme that was already operating in seeds.
How NatureHQ reads it
A second strong case of co-option to set beside the fish antifreeze. Nearly every flowering plant already makes desiccation-tolerant tissue — its seeds — and resurrection plants are, on this account, plants that turned that programme on somewhere new.
- Ancestral state reconstruction depends on the phylogeny and on how tolerance is scored, both of which have been revised since.
- The seed-programme redeployment is well supported in some lineages and inferred in others.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Springer journalsPublished in a Springer journal.
doi.org/10.1023/a:1026550808557
Checked against Crossref on 2026-09-28, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-09-03.