Plant-Fungi Partnership: Research Shows How First Plants Left Aquatic Life 450 Million Years Ago

Researchers from the CNRS and the Université de Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, in partnership with INRAE, have succeeded in their demonstration that plants' colonization of plants was made possible through a plant-fungi partnership.

A EurekAlert! report specified that verifying this four-decade-old hypothesis enables those in the field to understand the phase that was critical to life's development on Earth.

This study, Lipid exchanges drove the evolution of mutualism during plant terrestrialization, is published today on Science.

Researchers indicated in their study that around 450 million years back, the earliest plants left the water to live on land. For this to happen, they needed to adjust to the dryness or waterlessness of the land.

A Plant-Fungus Partnership

In the 1980s decade, the study of fossils resulted in the hypothesis that a plant-fungus partnership may have been where plant vegetation originated. It has then, just been validated by an international research team that French scientists had led.

For the researchers to understand how life was in the past, they needed to study the present-time plants. These, according to this report, fall into one of two major categories: vascular plants that have stems and roots, and bryophytes, non-vascular plants like mosses.

Most plants are living in cooperation with fungi, whereby, the pair of organisms are exchanging resources in a mutually beneficial manner.

Past studies have shown the presence of genes that are vital for the proper functioning of such a symbiosis, specifically in vascular plants.

'Marchantia Paleacea'

The researchers focused on bryophyte that resembles a succulent plant for which genes had not been examined. Specifically, this plant species is also known as Marchantia paleacea, described in the JRAAS journal, as having concentrations of five essential metals.

By examining M. paleacea, the scientists were able to present a lipid transfer between the plant and the fungus the same as the one seen in vascular plants.

By adjusting the use of CRISPR, a molecule tool that enables DNA to be accurately sliced, they were then able to adjust a gene forecasted as "symbolic."

In vascular plants, on the other hand, the disruption of lipid exchange between the plant and the fungus results in failure of symbiosis in the bryophyte.

The said two groups of plants' ancestor which occupied dry land, should thus, have exchanged lipids with fungus, just like the present-day plants.

Therefore, 450 million years after, one of the first steps of the secrets of life on land has finally been clarified and revealed.

What are Vascular Plants?

According to BYJU'S information site, vascular plants are plant species that have specialized vascular tissues for the transport of food, water, and minerals.

These plants have xylem for the transport of both water and mineral, from their roots to their various plants as such, as well as phloem for the transport from leaves of food, to other parts of the plant.

In addition, vascular plants comprise the diploid sporophyte phase as the domineering stage in its lifecycle. Essentially, they contain leaves, stems, and roots.

As mentioned, phloem transports the food generated during photosynthesis to the other plant parts. This, in angiosperm, is made up of sieve tube, phloem parenchyma, companion cells, and phloem fibers.

Related information about vascular plants is shown on the Roper Mountain Science Center's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Plants on Science Times.