Question

Consider these three adaptations: vascular tissue, seeds, flowers. From these three adaptations which one of these specific traits is the most important to the success as plants as a species on the planet?

1. Your explanation must include: what survival advantages each of the three adaptions lends to plants.

Answer 1

Answer:

Plants have evolved from an aquatic green alga protist. Later, they evolved some major adaptations to conquer the terrestrial regions that include the evolution of vascular tissues, seeds, and flowers. Each of these offered great adaptations made plants survival better suited for life on dry and arid regions or land and made their dominance possible over other species.

Colonization on the dry and arid conditions prevalent on the land and combating that with the presence of vascular tissues was the most remarkable step towards the plant evolution. As the temperature was at extremes and also the sunlight poses a high risk to make mutations as it was strong and dangerous. All these were tackled by the plants via vascular tissues by absorbing more water and allowing to propagate and evolve as one of the most significant among all.

Vascular tissue:

· The evolution of vascular plants is known to occur about 420 million years ago. They are believed to be evolved from like bryophyte ancestors. And, the life cycle it generally follows is the diploid sporophyte generation.

· Early vascular plants adapted in various ways and showed a remarkable contribution to the plant’s history.

· It evolved its true roots. This adaptation has helped them to secure their anchorage in plants more firmly on soil or ground. And, also allowed the plants to grow larger and stronger.

· It happened to evolve by the stems. As the stems are known to be composed of vascular tissues and lignin. The presence of lignin supports the plant for stiffness and rigidness. This allows the plant to gain height and make the surfaces available to collect more light and gases.

· Vascular tissues are the boon to transport water even to the highest parts of a tall plant.

· The development of leaves that occurred in these plants helped the plants to collect more light and carry out photosynthesis more efficiently.

· This development in plants provided by the evolution of vascular tissues gained to develop the more of photosynthesis and proved itself as photosynthetic pioneers

Seed plants:

Seeds have proved that plants can just not rely only on water for their basic reproductive needs.

Seeds contain a diploid embryo that germinates into a sporophyte during its life cycle. The protective coat around seeds and also the presence of storage tissues provides them with the evolutionary benefits to dominate.

The major evolutionary adaptation that actually occurred in such plants that made its survival possible is due to the presence of seeds and pollens. This advantage allowed seed plants to germinate and desiccate or reproduce in the absence of water under suitable conditions.

Also, the seeds are not just a gift of nature for plants but for humans in so many for example, nutritional and other medicinal forms of it. Even many industrial products do rely on it for their services like making paper, dyes, and textiles, etc.

Flowers:

· These are the most recent ones when it comes to advantages and evolutionary benefits that helped plants to survive and dominate.

· One of the reasons for its dominance is the high photosynthetic capacity that occurred in its leaves.

· Even at comparatively lower atmospheric C02 conditions, it never fails to maintain its water transport efficiency with the photosynthetic performance. This feature or advantage offered great help to plants to increase the rate of photosynthesis and that served the biggest benefit when it comes to competition over other species.

· Along with this the development of venation on leaves and leaves structural design offered the consistent evolutionary advantage as it helped in the fundamental role of plants that maintained the biological and atmospheric functions of the earth.