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SUMMARY:Dichotomous branching in the common liverwort\, Marchantia polymor
 pha - Jeremy Solly
DTSTART:20120525T120000Z
DTEND:20120525T123000Z
UID:TALK36393@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Suzy Stoodley
DESCRIPTION:Branching growth in the shoot is a key component of plant body
  architecture\, and sculpts our natural environment. As well as being cruc
 ial for optimising traits such as light-harvesting potential\, the develop
 ment of branching shoots was likely a key event in the evolutionary histor
 y of land plants\, perhaps being a prerequisite for leaf evolution. Palaeo
 ntological evidence suggests that thalloid organisms dominated the first l
 and flora\, and the current generally accepted phylogenies place the liver
 worts as the sister group to the rest of the land plants. In this context\
 , my project aims to use the thalloid liverwort Marchantia as a model to u
 nderstand branching in this anciently diverging group of plants. We plan t
 o use whole-organism live-imaging\, clonal analysis\, and T-DNA mutagenesi
 s to understand how branching operates at a molecular and cellular level\,
  and how this is ultimately translated into a branched thallus structure. 
 We hope that this will contribute to debates about how branching mechanism
 s have changed during land plant evolution\, and how the first land plants
  might have elaborated their thalloid body structures.
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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