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RESEARCH IN THE PHYCOLAB ALGAE AND THE QUEST FOR LAND From textbook to popular articles there is an appreciation that terrestrial life emerged from the seas. And there is generally no explanation that by "seas" is meant from oceans and lakes -that is, from both marine and freshwaters sources. But Phycologists in particular and scientist in general now know that our land plant flora evolved from freshwater green algae, not marine green algae. The most successful primordial forms of freshwater algae successfully conquered the land and eventually give rise to the land plants. However, and this is a BIG however, there were multiples conquests of the land by different lineages of freshwater and marine green algae that succeeded in becoming permanently terrestrial. These "other" conquests of the land have received relatively little attention. Our investigations on the evolutionary history of memebers of the poorly studied subaerial algal flora are providing with new information and new perspectives. Representatives of the marine green algal class Ulvophyceae have been found to be members of the terrestrial algal flora: the order Trentepohliales and the newly described Spongiochrysis hawaiiensis are examples of a direct marine invasion of terrestrial environments!
Keep tuned for more exciting discoveries!!!
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