Biology 138
Name _________________
Plant Evolution Webquest
Use the following website to answer the questions 1-3:
http://scitec.uwichill.edu.bb/bcs/bl14apl/conq.htm
1. What plant-like organisms are believed to be the ancestors of modern plants? To
which kingdom of organisms do these plant-like organisms belong?
2. What are three characteristics that the organisms we believe to be the ancestors
of land plants share with today’s land plants? Be sure to put this answer into your
own words. (In other words, don’t just copy information from the website – then you
aren’t learning anything!) What do you think is meant by “Reserves: starch” on the
website?
3. What were some of the challenges the first plants on land would have faced? There
may be some vocabulary terms here that you need to research before you can answer
this question and understand what you have written!
Use the following website to answer question 4:
http://www.purchon.com/ecology/niche.htm
4. What is a “niche”?
Use the website shown here to answer questions 5 and 6:
http://www.fhs.d211.org/departments/science/bgraba/Links/Advantages%20of%20movin
g%20onto%20land.htm
5. What advantages were there to being on land that would have made it worth it for
plants to risk facing all of the perils associated with coming out of the water? Be sure
to put these into your own words again! If you can’t do that, you don’t understand
the material!
6. What is meant by “gas exchange,” and why would it have been easier on the land?
Use this website to answer the following questions about the group of plants referred to
as GYMNOSPERMS:
http://scitec.uwichill.edu.bb/bcs/bl14apl/gym1.htm
7. What characteristic do all gymnosperms share? Before looking at the website to find
examples, can you list some examples of plants you think might be gymnosperms
based on the definition you have found?
Use the following website to answer a few questions about gymnosperms:
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookDiversity_6.html
8. What are the four major groups of gymnosperms? Answer in a complete sentence!
9. For each of the four major groups of gymnosperms, give some examples of plants
that belong to each group.
10. Go back to number 9 and put a circle around any of the plant examples you listed
that you were familiar with.
11. Go back to number 9 and put a box around any of the plant examples you listed
that you had never heard of before.
12. For those that you have a box around, search the Internet to learn about one or two
interesting features of those plants and describe them here.
For questions 13-16, use this website:
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_xylemphloem.html
13. What does it mean when a botanist describes a plant as being a “vascular plant”?
14. What is xylem? What is its role in the plant?
15. What is phloem? What is its role in the plant?
16. Are gymnosperms vascular or nonvascular? If you need a little help in answering this
question, click on the gymnosperm link on the right-hand side of the webpage.
Use the site below to answer questions 17-19.
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_moss.html
17. Are mosses, liverworts and hornworts (which are collectively called the
“bryophytes”) vascular or nonvascular?
18. Give two reasons why all bryophytes are short in stature. Simply listing two words
will not be good enough. An explanation is required to fully answer this question.
19. Do the bryophytes have roots? If not, what do they have that anchors them in the
ground? Do a little searching on the Internet to see if the structures that bryophytes
have are also used for absorbing water and minerals from the soil like roots do.
This next website can be used to answer questions 20-21
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/r/e/rer185/biol110hmain.htm
20. What are two important characteristics that biologists use to classify plants as
seedless vascular plants?
21. What are the four major groups of seedless vascular plants? Give both their scientific
group name and their more common group name.
Use this website to answer questions 22-26
http://www.biology4kids.com/files/plants_angiosperm.html
22. What two important innovations evolved in the angiosperms that allowed them to
become wildly successful?
23. Why do you suppose these innovations increased the likelihood of their reproductive
success? You may want to check out the biology4kids.com site to help answer this
question.
24. What are the two major groups of angiosperms? Use this website:
http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/BioBookPLANTANATII.html
25. Describe three characteristics of monocots, and list several examples of plants that are
monocots.
26. Describe four characteristics of dicots, and list several examples of plants that are
dicots.
27. The four major groups of plants studied in this exercise (gymnosperms, bryophytes,
seedless vascular plants, and angiosperms) were listed out of evolutionary order.
Using what you have learned, try to list the four major groups in order from the
earliest plants to colonize the land to the last plants to appear on land.
Using the table on page 580 of your textbook, answer the following question:
28. Which plant phylum contains the largest number of species? How many species are
in this group?
29. Which plant phylum contains the fewest total number of species? How many species
are in this group?