importance of seeds to plant evolution?
116027
Even though seeds aren't the earliest to hit the scene in plant evolution, as Djddan has stated, they have played a HUGE role in evolution...\nThe main thing is that seeds have given their parent plant an opportunity to travel! In general, plants are stationary organisms. Without means for locomotion (like most animals have), they must rely on their seeds to move for them. The reason is that it increases the area their genetic material can travel.\nIf seeds didn't travel, you would have huge pockets of areas that would have many genetically similar plants.\n\nSeeds ensure travel many different ways. Some have wings on them so that the wind can carry them away from their parent tree. Some are embedded in tasty fruit thhat get carried off by hungary animals. Some stuck to animals walking by, some are dropped into water and carried off by flowing rivers...The list goes on.\n\nSeeds have impacted evolution in huge ways. Hope this helps.
511172
water really do play a vital role in seed germination because seeds undergo water imbibation (especially those seeds that have been dormant for quite a long time) in order to break the seed coat. however, when it comes to the percentage of water to be present in soil, that would actually depend on the kind of plant seed that you are germinating. there are those plant seeds that just requires soil to be moist (that is, most of the soil micropores are filled with water) and others would need more water molecules in the soil (soil macropores are filled with water).
265204
Yes. In many plants their is a set ratio of height to base\nroot length therefore the depth of the seed may vary your\nplant height.
862372
Because light is needed for photosynthesis which makes energy..since the seeds have no leaves and hence no photosyntheisis they get around by having enough energy material provided within the seed to allow for growth until plant is above ground and has the leaves needed for photosynthesis
416340
I would have to answer that you're asking the wrong question!  \n\nThe explanation of how a plant or animal can develop asexual reproduction isn't going to help you better understand incremental changes via evolution; what you really need to understand is how a plant or animal can develop sexual reproduction. \n\nLooking at the first, microbiological life, asexual reproduction - i.e. cell division or 'budding' -  was the first and most essential form of reproduction. It took century upon century for more complex life to develop and specialize; and, for the mechanisms of sexual reproduction to develop and become established. \n\nThe change from asexual to sexual reproduction would indeed have been  massive, but it doesn't follow that it had to be sudden. When scientists look at species and evolution, they will generally say that one species was more successful at adapting to their environment than another. \n\nIt seems that the ancestors of many plants and animals developed sexual reproduction mechanisms, and they were more successful in competing with other animals for food/territory, over an extended period of time. The less successful ones died out long ago.\n\nSo - it may not be totally accurate to say, "reproduction either works or it doesn't." A better statement would be, "evolutionarily speaking, changes in species over time may cause one method of reproduction to become less successful than another."  \n\nHaving said that: there are other scientists who agree that evolution isn't always slow and gradual; they argue that sometimes evolution happens occasionally in a sudden and dramatic way, when one species splits to become new species - generally the new species are created when one population becomes separated by geographic boundaries. \n\nI'd strongly suggest reading the Wikipedia article (linked below) on Stephen Jay Gould for an evolutionary point of view which counters the slow evolution methodologies advocated by Dawkins; as well as the articple on evolution itself - which looks at the development of the understanding of evolutionary principles and their historical context.
216851
probably it evolved from seaweed.  and as seaweed eveloved it became grasses, and trees, and plants,and from it all of the vegetaion we see today.
1164941
The variety of plant life is astonishing, and studying it could lead to many different areas.  Botany is the science covering the study of the biology of plants.  Biochemistry would be the chemical reactions occurring in living organisms.\n\nGermination is the term used to describe the emergence of the plant from its seed.  It is controlled by chemical processes that allow the seed to determine when is the best time to emerge.   Moisture, temperature, light and darkness and other conditions control seed germination.\n\nPlant physiology is the study of the life processes of plants.\n\nThe molecule that carries the code of the plant, is known as DNA.\n\nHere are two links to start your exploration of this wondrous, awe-inspiring subject.
787064
Remember that evolution usually takes the path of least resistance.  C4 metabolisms are an advance over C3 by compartmentalization.  This means creating specialized tissues.  Specialized tissues are metabolically expensive to form and maintain.  If a plant can get by with a C3 metabolism for all of its shortcomings and in-efficiencies it will do so.  Also C4 metabolism is adapted for periodic high intensity heat.  A great majority of the world does not experience that type of environment so that type of adaptation is not necessary.  When you look at it that way you could also ask why more plants don't have a CAM metabolism.
936352
Darwinian theory can't explain which came first as one didn't evolve from the other. Plants evolved from algae and animals evolved from non-photosynthetic eukaryotes.
40194
It is a good idea for plants to spread their seeds about (seed dispersal).\n\nSome plants use animals to do this for them. The plants make attractive bits which animals eat. The seeds are eaten too but are undigested and pass out with the animal's droppings.\n\nIt depends which bit of the flower develops to make the attractive bit - sometimes the seeds are inside, sometimes (like strawberries) they are on the outside.
198399
If you were a plant you don't want to start growing (from a seed) right next to the parent plant as competition for sunlight and carbon dioxide would occur. Therefore, you want seeds to be dispersed by wind, water etc.
341396
It is the vegetative propagation.In the vegetative propagation no variation takes place in the next generation.It is the adaptive process in the struggle for survival,where sexual reproduction is not possible.Some plant adopt dual security by adopting both the kind of reproduction.It is the mechanism of  evolution,to make survival of the plant  possible.
126519
This project will build a phylogenetically-structured database focusing on gene duplication events and will use a gene-tree database to address functional outcomes of major genome duplication events in dicot plants.\n\nPlant genomics research is poised to provide direct benefits to the agricultural industry. Genetically engineered varieties are already a major component of the US crops of corn, cotton, and soybean. The long-term trend toward increased exploitation of this technology is inevitable. This provides a mechanism for the agricultural industry to lead the world in innovative products that will ensure a more secure world food supply.\n\nTo make this potential a reality, geneticists and molecular biologists must be able to identify genes and manipulate them to achieve desired traits in crops. However, crop plant genomes are complicated in a way that makes this search difficult. One major source of complication is the polyploid ancestry that many or most crop plants have experienced in their evolutionary history. Polyploidy is the phenomenon of an entire doubling of the chromosomal complement, such that each gene occurs in two copies. Many of these duplicates are subsequently lost and some become specialized for new roles; this can occur within a species or through the hybridization of closely related species.\n\nThis source of complexity in plant genomes hampers the effectiveness of efforts at crop improvement by plant geneticists, breeders, and molecular biologists. Sorting out the multiple similar copies in a family of recently duplicated genes to find the one which has retained the desired function is a basic requirement for many kinds of genetic research aimed at crop improvement. In this proposal, Drs. B. Sobral (PI) and A. Dickerman (co-PI) have been funded by the USDA to develop an informatics system that will help sort out these multiplicities. This informatics effort will be complemented by laboratory data generation to find all copies of genes in targeted families and identify which are still functional. The analytical system developed here will be used in collaborative research with plant scientists on the Virginia Tech campus ( Dr. John McDowell ) and at Cornell University ( Dr. Steven Tanksley ) to address genes with direct importance to potential genetic manipulations in crops.\n\nObjectives\n\n    * Build a phylogenetically structured database focusing on gene duplication events.\n    * Build a database to store published phylogenetic trees that bear on agricultural plants. For each tree we would infer reasonable branch-lengths using maximum likelihood on the sequences used to build the tree or a larger set of sequences.\n    * Analyze homology among genes from the core crop species. This will include many members of multi-gene families for which orthology/paralogy relationships are unclear.\n    * Fit gene trees relating the homologous gene sequences onto the structure of the species tree to infer the relative time depths of gene duplication events. The goal is to discover ancient polyploid events and resolve orthology/paralogy relationships in the duplicate genes resulting from the event in descendant species. Use gene-tree database to address functional outcomes of major genome duplication events in dicot plants.\n    * Catalog evidence of specific polyploid events in the history of plants. This includes the search for as yet unknown events as well as adding details to known polyploidies.\n    * Determine how frequently genes are lost versus maintained after a complete genome duplication. We will estimate rates for gene deletion, loss of function through non-sense mutations, amino-acid sequence divergence, and nucleotide divergence.\n    * Determine whether classes of genes can be defined that are lost either faster or more slowly than average. In particular, we will look for differences between metabolic enzyme genes versus signal transduction genes. We will also ask, where possible, whether there is
276727
banana does not grow from seeds.  Asexual reproduction.  Male is useless.  Plants will multiply from roots.
643651
Some plants are notorious self seeders.  Their seeds drop very easily and grow even easier.  Others depend on insects and birds to pick up their seeds and spread them.
1036161
DNA is a way of storing information.  But that is far from intelligence.  Nothing senses changes in the environment and *decides* that it needs to change the organism to survive.\n\nYou are on the right track that there is an *element* of "luck" involved.    Randomness creates *variation*.  But there are two corrections you should know:  (1) Mutation is not the only source of randomness; and (2) Randomness is not the only thing driving evolution ... i.e. EVOLUTION IS NOT BLIND LUCK.\n\n1. Random mutations are improbable, but given huge numbers of replications, and huge amounts of time, there are *many* chances for mutations to occur, and those that produce some slight advantage tend to get propagated slightly better into future generations.  \n\nBut the invention of sexual reproduction took that randomness to a whole new level.   DNA from two different individuals could produce *huge* numbers of different combinations.  This allows improvements to propagate much faster into future generations, and allowed much faster adaptations to a changing environment.\n\n2. It's really important to know that EVOLUTION IS NOT JUST RANDOMNESS (BLIND LUCK).  Evolution is driven by 3 ingredients: variation + selection + time.  Randomness produces the *variation* ... but the selective pressures are NOT random.  \n\nFor example, a mammal may have several litters of offspring, say 20 in total.  Randomness produces the *variation* that some of these will be more hairy than their siblings.  But there is *nothing* random about the fact that those offspring with more hair may survive better in a colder environments and therefore produce more babies.  (E.g. if the environment is getting colder, or if some members want to, say, push a little further north.)  Add the ingredient of *time* and a much hairier subspecies can arise and get separated from the parent species ... and even more *time* and the subspecies can completely lose the ability to mate with the parent species, and you have two different species.\n\nSummary: randomness supplies the sparks of evolution, but selective pressures in the environment + time, provide the fuel.
1007176
Plants which reproduce without seeds appeared first in the history of the Earth.  Plants with seeds appeared much later.