Insights into Land Plant Evolution Garnered from the Marchantia polymorpha Genome.

The evolution of land flora transformed the terrestrial environment. Land plants evolved from an ancestral charophycean alga from which they inherited developmental, biochemical, and cell biological attributes. Additional biochemical and physiological adaptations to land, and a life cycle with an alternation between multicellular haploid and diploid generations that facilitated efficient dispersal of desiccation tolerant spores, evolved in the ancestral land plant. We analyzed the genome of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, a member of a basal land plant lineage. Relative to charophycean algae, land plant genomes are characterized by genes encoding novel biochemical pathways, new phytohormone signaling pathways (notably auxin), expanded repertoires of signaling pathways, and increased diversity in some transcription factor families. Compared with other sequenced land plants, M. polymorpha exhibits low genetic redundancy in most regulatory pathways, with this portion of its genome resembling that predicted for the ancestral land plant. PAPERCLIP

From wise humanising creativity to (post-humanising) creativity

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Palgrave Macmillan (Springer) via the DOI in this record.This chapter demonstrates that the concepts of creativity in education put forward to date can only go so far in addressing the rapid, unpredictable changes inherent in the 21st century and the accompanying policy and practice challenges we face. The chapter shifts away from conceptualisation such as ‘wise humanising creativity’ and proposes a different articulation of creativity which may allow us to think about and action creativity to meet these challenges. This (post-humanising) creativity overcomes problems of humanistic conceptualisations as it allows for a full range of ‘players’ within the creative process, it incorporates a different, emergent take on ethics and is willing to see the future too as emergent, rather than always ‘to-bedesigned’. The chapter culminates by offering examples of (post-humanising) creativity in action, aiming to bring alive how it can address our policy and practice dilemmas.In writing this chapter, I would like to acknowledge the support and critical friendship of Professor Teresa Cremin, Dr Lindsay Hetherington, Dr Fran Martin, Professor Karen Mattick, Dr Deborah Osberg and Alex Schmoelz. The CREATIONS project was funded by Horizon 2020 Framework of the European Commission, Grant number 665917. The C2Learn project was funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission Grant Number 318480. The Next Choreography project was funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation; with Figures 1 and 2 credited to photographer Pari Naderi

Insights into land plant evolution garnered from the Marchantia polymorpha genome

The evolution of land flora transformed the terrestrial environment. Land plants evolved from an ancestral charophycean alga from which they inherited developmental, biochemical, and cell biological attributes. Additional biochemical and physiological adaptations to land, and a life cycle with an alternation between multicellular haploid and diploid generations that facilitated efficient dispersal of desiccation tolerant spores, evolved in the ancestral land plant. We analyzed the genome of the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, a member of a basal land plant lineage. Relative to charophycean algae, land plant genomes are characterized by genes encoding novel biochemical pathways, new phytohormone signaling pathways (notably auxin), expanded repertoires of signaling pathways, and increased diversity in some transcription factor families. Compared with other sequenced land plants, M. polymorpha exhibits low genetic redundancy in most regulatory pathways, with this portion of its genome resembling that predicted for the ancestral land plant