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Vast DNA Tree of Life For Plants Revealed By Global Science Team
An international team of scientists used 1.8 billion letters of genetic code from more than 9,500 species covering almost 8,000 known flowering plant genera to create the most up-to-date understanding of the flowering plant tree of life. The research has been published in the journal Nature. Phys.Or...
The tree of life is uncovered by comparing DNA sequences between different species to identify changes (mutations) that accumulate over time like a molecular fossil record. A key advantage of the team's approach is that it enables a wide diversity of plant material, old and new, to be sequenced, even when the DNA is badly damaged. They found that early flowering plants did indeed explode in diversity, giving rise to more than 80% of the major lineages that exist today shortly after their origin.
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