Question

In: Biology

What are some ways the evolution of plants is applied to daily life, medicine, or research?

What are some ways the evolution of plants is applied to daily life, medicine, or research?

Solutions

Expert Solution

Plant evolution is the subset of evolutionaru phenomena that concern plants.The study of plant evolution attempts to explain how the present diversity of plants arose over geologic time.

In daily life

Evolutionary principles are now routinely incorporated into medicine and agriculture.Examples inclide the design of treatment that slow the evolution of resistance by weeds, pests, and pathogens and design of breeding programmes, protection of small and isolated population from inbreeding depression , the design of harvesting regimes that minimize unwanted life history evolution.

In medicine

Many of the drugs used in our hospitals and pharmacies come from plants.Willow bark contain salicylic acid, the main ingredient in aspirin.Paclitaxel(taxol) was isolated from the bark of pacific yew tree which is used to stop cancer cells from dividing.Rushfoil(croton) and physic nut(jatropha) are close relatives from the spurge family and are both used to treat malaria in Nepal.Both can be used to treat malaria because of the underlying shared chemistry between them.And since manufactureres search for those same properties , evolutionary relationships between traditionally used plants could help to guide their search.

In research

Evolution of plants help in the discovery of new plants with high yielding crops and pest resistance.For example one goal in agriculture is apomixis, where a plant produces seeds clonally by skipping the haploid generation and thereby maintaining the characteristocs such as high yielding hybrid, of the mother plant.Apomixis would mean crops with desirable qualities would be produced more easily and cheapily.Gaining a better understanding of the molecular basis of plant reproduction and the regulation of the alternation of generation could provide tools to engineer apomixis.


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