Watkins et al.

2007 Desiccation tolerance in ferns

What is desiccation tolerance? Why was it important for the first land plants?
What organisms have DT? In what stages in their life cycle?
What is the goal for this research that Watkins et al. state?
Where did the plants that Watkins et al. used come from? Where were the
grown for this experiment?
Figure 1 shows speed of drying on the X-axis (faster on the left, slower on the
right) and percent recovery of photosynthetic ability on the Y-axis. What is
the relationship between these two quantities? (Recall that chlorophyll will
autofluoresce that is, when its excited by a photon, as happens in
photosynthesis, and electron is elevated to a higher energy state; normally
the electron transport chain will capture this energy, but in this assay, it is
emitted as light again, and the amount of light thats emitted back, relative
to what the experimenter starts with gives the F measurement)
Is there evidence of a habitat trend in Figure 1? Ie, do plants from one habitat
seem to consistently respond differently than plants from a different habitat?
What does Figure 2 tell us about how these three species respond to different
intensities of desiccation?
Is desiccation an important selective agent in contributing to the evolution of
fern gametophytes? What adaptations do Watkins et al. suggest might be
important for a fern gametophyte living in a dryer environment than one
living in a more humid environment?
What do you think of their conclusions that fern gametophytes are, for all
intents and purposes, bryophytes?