Taking into account the relative paucity of knowledge about rDNA organisation in most gymnosperms despite the rather reduced size of the group (1000 gymnosperm versus 250 000 angiosperm species), we ...

Plants tend to hoard DNA, not throwing anything out. The extra genes they hold inside can mutate to produce new physical traits. Holding onto the extra genes increases the tempo of evolution for the ...

Determining the major drivers of species diversification and phenotypic innovation across the Tree of Life is one of the grand challeges in evolutionary biology. Facilitated by the Germplasm Bank of ...

The origin of flowering plants, or angiosperms, stands as one of evolutionary biology's great enigmas. Scientists know that they diverged from the seed-bearing plants, or gymnosperms, at least 150 ...

For many years, Charles Darwin was haunted by flowers. In 1859, the naturalist published his most famous work, On the Origin of Species, the book that is generally regarded as the foundation of ...

The discovery of a beetle and pollen in 105-million-year-old Spanish amber is proof of a new insect pollination mode that dates to the mid-Mesozoic, before the rise of flowering plants. The study ...