Convergent evolution of carnivorous plants The repetitive nature of convergent evolution opens a venue to link genetic changes with phenotypic changes that arose during the evolution of complex traits in multicellular lineages. During 470 million years of evolution, the body plans of land plants diversified independently among the gametophyte and sporophyte life stages of different plant groups. Convergent evolution is similar to parallel evolution, which occurs when two independent species evolve in the same direction and thus independently acquire similar characteristics; for instance, gliding frogs have evolved in parallel from multiple types of tree frog. In agreement with previous work on single-copy genes (8, 9, 43 –45), we found this set of genes not to be a random fraction of the genome but to encode … INTRODUCTION In response to environmental pressures, phylogenetically unrelated species sometimes arrive at similar adaptive solutions through independent mechanisms ( Tanaka et al., 2009 ). Asked in Biology , Evolution Two examples of convergent evolution among the Caminalcules ? A Succulent Convergence . ... selection likely promotes convergent evolution of these genes to single-copy status across angiosperms. Thick succulent stems, adapted to conserve water, evolved independently in several lineages of desert flowering plants. Corresponding author. Both the familiar Latin American cacti and the African euphorbias lost their leaves and transferred photosynthesis to their enlarged stems, whose specialized anatomy provides water storage and support. The flowering plants, also known as angiosperms, Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approximately 13,164 known … Our findings demonstrate a unique case of convergent evolution via distinct biochemical strategies and suggest a new way to genetically reconstruct lignin biosynthesis in higher plants. Laboratorio de Botánica y Sistemática, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de los Andes, Apartado Aéreo, Bogotá, Colombia. Convergent gene loss following gene and genome duplications creates single-copy families in flowering plants. In extant bryophytes, early-diverging land plants, the gametophyte is the dominant phase of the life cycle [ 1 , 2 ]. E-mail: [email protected]. An excellent example of such convergent evolution is the trait of carnivory, which arose in five independent orders of flowering plants. Search for other works by this … Convergent evolution of high elevation plant growth forms and geographically structured variation in Andean Lupinus (Fabaceae) Natalia Contreras-Ortiz . The evolution in flowering plants has closely followed the evolution of insects for their pollination.