16/04/2023
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Garden admission applies
Event information
Time
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Price
Garden admission applies

Land plants evolved about half a billion years ago from algae, and have since transformed the planet. They have become bigger (or smaller) and more complex, evolving branches and roots, leaves and flowers, and various ways to survive in a changing environment.

How did all these complex plants evolve?

To understand this, we need to know how the genes evolved that control the growth and development of plants. It can be difficult to do this from fossils, where there is often not enough DNA left to sequence. Even then, it may be hard to know what the function of those genes would have been.

In this talk, Dr Renske Vroomas will explain how computer simulations are used to study how plants evolved their growth over long evolutionary time scales.