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Bryophytes occupy a basal position in the monophyletic evolution of land plants and have a life cycle in which the gametophyte generation dominates over the sporophyte generation, offering a significant advantage in conducting genetics. Owing to its low genetic redundancy and the availability of an array of versatile molecular tools, including efficient genome editing, the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha has become a model organism of choice that provides clues to the mechanisms underlying eco-evo-devo biology in plants. Recent analyses of developmental mutants have revealed that key genes in developmental processes are functionally well conserved in plants, despite their morphological differences, and that lineage-specific evolution occurred by neo/subfunctionalization of common ancestral genes. We suggest that M. polymorpha is an excellent platform to uncover the conserved and diversified mechanisms underlying land plant development.
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Supplemental Video 1: Growth of Marchantia polymorpha (female). Pictures were taken for 50 days, 1 picture/hour, starting from 28-day-old thalli. The whole sequence was compressed to 25 sec. Far-red light was added to 56-day-old thalli, which appears as ‘jumping’ at the tips of thalli. Female sexual organs (archegoniophores) grow upward after irradiation of far-red light. (Video produced by R. Nishihama and T. Kohchi, Kyoto University) Download Supplemental Table 1 (XLSX). Download Supplemental Figure 1 (PDF).