Phylogenetic Relationships of the "Green Algae" and "Bryophytes"

Abstract

Considerable progress has been made recently, based on classical morphological characters and newly described ultrastructural features, in understanding the phylogenetic relationships of the tracheophytes to the green algae and bryophytes. Recent technological advances in molecular biology, particularly the advent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), have allowed nucleotide sequence data relevant to such large-scale phylogenetic questions to accumulate, especially ribosomal RNA gene sequences (both the large and small subunits) from the nucleus and the chloroplast. We present synthetic cladistic analyses of the green plants that combine and compare available morphological and molecular data sets