About this Research Topic
Ferns and lycophytes are distinct lineages, with lycophytes being the oldest lineage among extant vascular plants, and ferns being the sister group to seed plants. Historically, both lineages have been studied together and treated as the paraphyletic group pteridophytes, mainly because both lineages are spore-bearing and share many other biological features, such as the overall life cycle. Therefore, despite their lower extant species diversity compared to flowering plants, the biology of ferns and lycophytes is extremely important to understand the origins, evolution, and diversification of land plants.
For about three decades, insights from molecular data have contributed to revolutionizing our understanding of fern and lycophyte evolution. Notwithstanding the high-throughput sequencing data available now, publications involving studies on the omics-scale targeting fern and lycophytes are still incipient. Access to all kinds of omics data (e.g. genomic, metagenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic) provided a renewed perspective for inferring evolutionary processes and patterns in all groups of organisms.
This research topic aims to gather articles based on omics approaches (including museomics) to reveal evolutionary mechanisms behind ferns and lycophytes diversification. We are interested in receiving original research, reviews or mini-reviews, opinions, and perspectives that address the following topics:
• Patterns of diversification on a genomic scale;
• Speciation patterns and processes;
• Roles of reticulation (e.g. hybridization) and polyploidization in diversification;
• Evolutionary developmental biology;
• Phenotypic evolution;
• Population genomics;
• Biogeography;
• Reproductive biology.
For about three decades, insights from molecular data have contributed to revolutionizing our understanding of fern and lycophyte evolution. Notwithstanding the high-throughput sequencing data available now, publications involving studies on the omics-scale targeting fern and lycophytes are still incipient. Access to all kinds of omics data (e.g. genomic, metagenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic) provided a renewed perspective for inferring evolutionary processes and patterns in all groups of organisms.
This research topic aims to gather articles based on omics approaches (including museomics) to reveal evolutionary mechanisms behind ferns and lycophytes diversification. We are interested in receiving original research, reviews or mini-reviews, opinions, and perspectives that address the following topics:
• Patterns of diversification on a genomic scale;
• Speciation patterns and processes;
• Roles of reticulation (e.g. hybridization) and polyploidization in diversification;
• Evolutionary developmental biology;
• Phenotypic evolution;
• Population genomics;
• Biogeography;
• Reproductive biology.
Keywords: biogeography, Fern and lycophyte evolution, phylogenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, speciation, systematics
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
