Plant Biodiversity and Adaptation

Biodiversity and Adaptation
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Biodiversity and Adaptation
Plants have adaptations to different habitats, including water, air, and land. These adaptations are facilitated by various structures and processes that enable plants to adapt to these habitats. Adaptations also allowed plants to move from an aquatic environment to various habitats they inhabit today. Modern-day plants evolved hundreds of millions of years ago during the Paleozoic period (Selosse & Joyard, 2019). Early plants shared aquatic habitats, but today’s plants can move from the aquatic environment to various habitats. This is due to adaptation that enables plants to withstand, survive, and reproduce under specific environmental conditions.
Tracheophyta (fern), for instance, has vascular tissues to allow it to survive on land. Initially, these plants grew in swamps and would fertilize their eggs by swimming their sperms in water (Rensing, 2020). Plant adaptation allows plants to survive in specific habitats. For example, water lilies can only survive in water. In contrast, cactus can survive under extreme dryness. These differences are caused by the evolutionary changes in the plants’ ecophysiological traits (De Vries & Archibald, 2018). Ecophysiological characteristics such as leaf structure, gaseous exchange, and plant function play a significant role in the adaptation.
Different plant organisms (prokaryotic and eukaryotic) have different adaptations. A prokaryote is a unicellular organism that lacks a distinct nucleus or membrane-encased organelles (Selosse & Joyard, 2019). The most known prokaryotic organism is bacteria. On the other hand, a eukaryote is an organism whose cell contains a clearly defined nucleus and other organelles enclosed within membranes (Selosse & Joyard, 2019). Selosse & Joyard (2019) postulated that eukaryotes have developed from a symbiotic relationship of prokaryotic cells whose union led to the transition from prokaryotic to eukaryotic.
Studies show that plants evolved from living in water to inhabiting land and other environments because of genes they inherited from bacteria (Bowles et al., 2022). According t...