Sporophyte

A sporophyte (/spɔːroʊˌfaɪt/) is the

diploid multicellular stage in the life cycle
of a plant or alga. It develops from the
zygote produced when a haploid egg cell
is fertilized by a haploid sperm and each
sporophyte cell therefore has a double
set of chromosomes, one set from each
parent. All land plants, and most
multicellular algae, have life cycles in
which a multicellular diploid sporophyte
phase alternates with a multicellular
haploid gametophyte phase. In the seed
plants, the largest groups of which are
the gymnosperms and flowering plants
(angiosperms), the sporophyte phase is
more prominent than the gametophyte,
and is the familiar green plant with its
roots, stem, leaves and cones or flowers.
In flowering plants the gametophytes are
very reduced in size, and are represented
by the germinated pollen and the embryo
sac.

Young sporophytes of the common moss Tortula

li h h i h
muralis. In mosses, the gametophyte is the
dominant generation, while the sporophytes consist
of sporangium-bearing stalks growing from the tips
of the gametophytes

Sporophytes of moss during spring

The sporophyte produces spores (hence

the name) by meiosis, a process also
known as "reduction division" that
reduces the number of chromosomes in
each spore mother cell by half. The
resulting meiospores develop into a
gametophyte. Both the spores and the
resulting gametophyte are haploid,
meaning they only have one set of
chromosomes. The mature gametophyte
produces male or female gametes (or
both) by mitosis. The fusion of male and
female gametes produces a diploid
zygote which develops into a new
sporophyte. This cycle is known as
alternation of generations or alternation
of phases.

In flowering plants the sporophyte comprises the

In flowering plants, the sporophyte comprises the
whole multicellular body except the pollen and
embryo sac

Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and

hornworts) have a dominant
gametophyte phase on which the adult
sporophyte is dependent for nutrition.
The embryo sporophyte develops by cell
division of the zygote within the female
sex organ or archegonium, and in its
early development is therefore nurtured
by the gametophyte.[1] Because this
embryo-nurturing feature of the life cycle
is common to all land plants they are
known collectively as the embryophytes.
Cleistocarpous sporophyte of the moss
Physcomitrella patens

Most algae have dominant gametophyte

generations, but in some species the
gametophytes and sporophytes are
morphologically similar (isomorphic). An
independent sporophyte is the dominant
form in all clubmosses, horsetails, ferns,
gymnosperms, and angiosperms that
have survived to the present day. Early
land plants had sporophytes that
produced identical spores (isosporous or
homosporous) but the ancestors of the
gymnosperms evolved complex
heterosporous life cycles in which the
spores producing male and female
gametophytes were of different sizes, the
female megaspores tending to be larger,
and fewer in number, than the male
microspores.

During the Devonian period several plant

groups independently evolved
heterospory and subsequently the habit
of endospory, in which the gametophytes
develop in miniaturized form inside the
spore wall. By contrast in exosporous
plants, including modern ferns, the
gametophytes break the spore wall open
on germination and develop outside it.
The megagametophytes of endosporic
plants such as the seed ferns developed
within the sporangia of the parent
sporophyte, producing a miniature
multicellular female gametophyte
complete with female sex organs, or
archegonia. The oocytes were fertilized
in the archegonia by free-swimming
flagellate sperm produced by windborne
miniaturized male gametophytes in the
form of pre-pollen. The resulting zygote
developed into the next sporophyte
generation while still retained within the
pre-ovule, the single large female
meiospore or megaspore contained in
the modified sporangium or nucellus of
the parent sporophyte. The evolution of
heterospory and endospory were among
the earliest steps in the evolution of
seeds of the kind produced by
gymnosperms and angiosperms today.
The rRNA genes seems to escape global
methylation machinery in bryophytes,
unlike seed plants.

References
1. Ralf Reski(1998): Development,
genetics and molecular biology of
mosses. In: Botanica Acta. Bd. 111,
S. 1-15.
P. Kenrick & P.R. Crane (1997) The
origin and early evolution of plants on
land. Nature 389, 33-39.
T.N. Taylor, H. Kerp and H. Hass (2005)
Life history biology of early land plants:
Deciphering the gametophyte phase.
Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences 102, 5892-5897.
P.R. Bell & A.R. Helmsley (2000) Green
plants. Their Origin and Diversity.
Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-
521-64673-1
Matyášek, Roman, Alice Krumpolcová,
Jana Lunerová, Eva Mikulášková,
Josep A. Rosselló, and Aleš Kovařík.
“Unique Epigenetic Features of
Ribosomal RNA Genes (RDNA) in Early
Diverging Plants (Bryophytes).”
 Frontiers in Plant Science 10 (May
2019).
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.010
66 .

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