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Flowering plants: Another “earlier than thought” … this time only 200 million years

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courtesy Netherlands Flower Bulb Institute

From ScienceDaily we learn (Apr. 11, 2011),

“A polyploidy event is basically the acquisition, through mutation, of a ‘double dose’ of genetic material,” explained Yuannian Jiao, a graduate student at Penn State and the first author of the study. “In vertebrates, although genome duplication is known to occur, it generally is lethal. Plants, on the other hand, often survive and can sometimes benefit from duplicated genomes.” Jiao explained that, over the generations, most duplicated genes from polyploidy events simply are lost. However, other genes adopt new functions or, in some instances, subdivide the workload with the genetic segments that were duplicated, thereby cultivating more efficiency and better specialization of tasks for the genome as a whole.

Jiao also explained that, although ancient events of polyploidy have been well documented in plant-genome-sequencing projects, biologists had dated the earliest polyploidy event in flowering plants at around 125 to 150 million years ago. “There were hints that even earlier events had occurred, but no good evidence,” Jiao said. “That’s what makes our team’s findings so exciting. We identified at least two major events — one occurring in the ancestor of all seed plants about 320 million years ago, and another occurring in the flowering-plant lineage specifically, about 192 to 210 million years ago. That’s up to 200 million years earlier than such events were assumed to have taken place.”

Comments
Nature's Palette: The Science of Plant ColorMung
April 15, 2011
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Quote of note: "What about polyploidy plants? It has been claimed that since some plants are polyploidy (having double the normal chromosome numbers), this proves that duplication must be beneficial and must increase information. Polyploidy was my special area of study during my Ph.D. thesis. Interestingly, it makes a great deal of difference how a polyploid arises. If somatic (body) cells are treated with the chemical called colchicine, cell division is disrupted , resulting in chromosome doubling - but no new information arises. The plants that result are almost always very stunted, morphologically distorted, and generally sterile. The reason for this should be obvious - the plants must waste twice as much energy to make twice as much DNA, but with no new genetic information! The nucleus is also roughly twice as large, disrupting proper cell shape and cell size. In fact, the plants actually have less information than before, because a great deal of the information which controls gene regulation depends on gene dosage (copy number). Loss of regulatory control is loss of information. This is really the same reason why an extra chromosome causes Down's Syndrome. Thousands of genes become improperly improperly regulated, because of extra genic copies. If somatic polyploidization is consistently deleterious, why are there any polyploidy plants at all - such as potatoes? The reason is that polyploidy can arise by a different process - which is called sexual polyploidization.This happens when a unreduced sperm unites with a unreduced egg. In this special case, all of the information within the two parents is combined into the offspring, and there can be a net gain of information within that single individual. But there is no more total information within the population. the information within the two parents was simply pooled. In such a case we are seeing pooling of information, but not any new information.",,, "in some special cases, the extra level of gene backup within a polyploidy can outweigh the problems of disrupted gene regulation and reduced fertility - and so can result in a type of "net gain". But such a "net gain" is more accurately described as a net reduction in the rate of degeneration." John Sanford - Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome - pages 191-192 - Dr. John Sanford has been a Cornell University Professor for more that 25 years (being semi-retired since 1998). He received his Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin in the area of plant breeding and plant genetics.,,, His most significant scientific contributions involved three inventions - the biolistic ("gene gun") process, pathogen-derived resistance, and genetic immunization. Most of the transgenic crops grown in the world today were genetically engineered using the gene gun technology developed by John and his collaborators. (Due to such a stellar record in plant genetics, I take Dr. Sanford's unmatched experimental experience of plants strictly obeying the principle of Genetic Entropy, with never a violation, to be 'state of the art' for what we can expect for plants).bornagain77
April 15, 2011
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BTW: I think it is in the interest of UD, and the interest of science, to always distinguish between "evolution" and "adaptation". We always hear: "macroevolution", and "microevolution". But "microevolution" is noting more, or less, than species adapting to their environment. There's no progressive aspect to it. How is it then called "evolution"? It is just shifting around. In fact, that's what the Darwinists themselves say: "evolution is a change in gene frequencies." NO!!!! That's "adaptation". Evolution has to do with new forms of life, and new genetic information of great complexity arising. If we always speak of "adaptation" and "evolution", then the emptiness, the shallowness, the vacuity of Darwinism will begin to appear. This prevents Darwinists from using "bait and switch" tactics: "Oh, you know, evolution is a fact. Galapagos finch size increases under selective pressure." Well, that may or may not be a fact; but it's close to it. But that isn't evolution: it's ADAPTATION. And let's not let them confuse others (and themselves) by making the one equivalent to the other.PaV
April 15, 2011
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As I now always say: "Another day; another bad day for Darwinism." (AD,ABDFD) It would appear "gradualism" is out, and singular events of major importance are in. Alas for Darwinism. When will this theory die???!!PaV
April 15, 2011
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All Things New (Steven Curtis Chapman) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQOQ9kxyob4 ------------ Flowering Plant Big Bang: “Flowering plants today comprise around 400,000 species,“To think that the burst that gave rise to almost all of these plants occurred in less than 5 million years is pretty amazing - especially when you consider that flowering plants as a group have been around for at least 130 million years.” Pam Soltis, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History Thank God for Flowers - Hugh Ross - August 2010 Excerpt: Paleontologist Kevin Boyce and climate modeler Jung-Eun Lee,,, recently discovered that flowering plants contribute much more than romance and beauty to humanity’s wellbeing. They uncovered evidence suggesting that without flowering plants, human civilization would not even be possible. Boyce and Lee found that a world without angiosperms (flowering plants) would not only be drab and uninspiring but would also be much drier and hotter and lacking in species diversity. The researchers noted that angiosperms transpire water to the atmosphere about four times more efficiently than other species of plants. http://www.reasons.org/thank-god-flowers "A major problem for Neo-Darwinism is the complete lack of evidence for plant evolution in the fossil record. As a whole, the fossil evidence of prehistoric plants is actually very good, yet no convincing transitional forms have been discovered in the abundant plant fossil record" Jerry Bergman - The Evolution Of Plants - "A Major Problem For Darwinists" - Technical Journal - 2002 online edition "Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group." (C.P. Hickman, L.S. Roberts, and F.M. Hickman, Integrated Principles of Zoology, p. 866 (1988, 8th ed.). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/biologoss_fossil_record_page_c039831.html "The long-term stasis, following a geologically abrupt origin, of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists" – Stephen Jay Gould - Harvard "In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms." Fossils and Evolution, TS Kemp - Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999bornagain77
April 15, 2011
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