ID: 613 / 26

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: MORPHOLOGICAL, ANATOMICAL, AND EVOLUTIONARY BASIS OF HABIT TRANSITIONS IN PLANTS

Abstract: Plant growth habits are incredibly diverse, ranging from herbaceous, annuals to long-lived woody trees, each habit type occupying a unique ecological niche and bearing unique evolutionary adaptations to their environments. Thus, the topic of growth habit transitions has drawn interest from a diversity of research areas and several outstanding questions remain concerning the rampant evolutionary transitions across plants: What anatomical changes are associated with habit shifts and how does that effect plant biomechanics? Which evolutionary developmental processes were involved in these transitions? Which climatic variables influence habit transitions across plants? How do fine-scale processes at the cell wall influence organismal form? In this symposium, speakers will interrogate transitions in growth habit from different biological scales–– scaling from the contributions of plant cell wall architecture to gross-stem developmental anatomy, to ecological correlations with habit transitions, to macroevolutionary processes, and finally to the biomechanical differences between habit types. In addition to covering a breath of disciplines which interact with habit transitions, talks will cover plants from distantly related lineages, and speakers will represent a diversity of institutions.

Speaker 1: Marcelo R. Pace Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico marcelo.pace@ib.unam.mx Developmental processes behind habit transitions from lianas to trees and shrubs in vascular plants

Speaker 2: Kamil Frankiewicz Johannesburg University, South Africa kamil.e.frankiewicz@gmail.com Habit shifts and their anatomical background – insights from South African biodiversity hotspot

Speaker 3: Joyce Onyenedum Cornell University, USA jgc235@cornell.edu Evolution of development of vascular variants in the Lina tribe paullinieae

Topics (Up to three): Development and Structure

Topic 2: Ecology and Plant Communities

Topic 3: Systematics

Justification: The processes behind habit transitions are fundamental to understand plant diversity and evolution. Virtually, all plant lineages show cases of habit transitions. In Angiosperms, these cases are as vast as possible, but habit transitions are also present in gymnosperms, lycophytes and bryophytes. This symposium is the first endeavor to bring together the community studying this theme, covering a diverse array of habits and lineages to understand diversification, biomechanics, physiology, ecology and systematics aspects behind habit transitions.