Plants show a truly remarkable diversity of form, function, life history, and genomic organisation. They form intimate mutualisms with fungi and bacteria at their roots, shoots and leaves, and have incorporated organelles into their cells that transform water and carbon dioxide into the complex molecules on which (almost) all other life depends. In particular, plants form close associations with animals, with whom they sometimes cooperate, sometimes exploit, and sometimes are exploited by. Understanding the nature of these interactions, and how they evolve to form ecological communities, is critical for understanding when and where dangerous levels of anthropogenic environmental change are exceeded.

This module will demonstrate how key hypotheses in evolutionary innovation, genome organisation, adaptive radiation, the evolution of reproductive strategies, and cooperation and conflict can be tested using plants. We will discuss how important plants are to life on earth, and to animal cultures and economies, especially those of humans. We will consider mechanisms that have played out over millions of years of evolution, as well as those observable within cells, genomes, populations and ecological communities today. Our explorations will explore the frontiers of plant evolution and ecology, life history evolution, and genomics, as well the potential for research on plants to address the problems faced by this planet, and by humanity.

Topics to be covered will include:

Plant diversity in form, habit and means of dispersal – gymnosperms, angiosperms, bryophytes.
	Genomic and phenotypic convergence across habits and habitats
	Hybridisation, polyploidy and its role in generating evolutionary novelty
	The evolution of genomes and of gene families
	The evolution of land plants – the colonisation of the land, and of the air
	Foraging for pollinators and for seed dispersers: the evolution of flowers and fruit
	Plasticity and evolutionary rescue – understanding the ecological resilience of communities
	Adaptation and speciation and the invasion of novel habitats
	The evolution of mating systems and outcrossing and inbreeding in plants
	Behavioural ecology and the social lives of plants: cooperation and conflict across and within species
	Plant herbivory and co-evolution, and biodiversity in tropical rainforests
	Artificial selection and domestication: shaping cuisines, health, politics, and our senses
	Plants and pathogens in a world of biodiversity loss and climate change
	Plants and human civilisation: climate stability and ecological resilience
	Plants, plant blindness and new ways of imagining the world
Teaching will include filmed and in-person lectures and Q and A sessions as well as problem based and journal discussion sessions. Assuming in person teaching is possible, the module will include a day of fieldwork and a data discussion and analysis session, where you will work in groups to test hypotheses that you have developed during a planning session. You will then present data from this practical work at a research symposium, and write a practical report exploring your findings in more detail. In addition, you will summarise two primary research papers that are relevant to the topics covered in the first and second half of the lectures.

Learning objectives

By the end of the module, you will:

Appreciate the diversity of plant lifestyles, form, and behaviours, and their interactions with the biosphere, and with animal evolution, sensory ecology and behaviour.
	Be familiar with the key phenotypic and life history innovations associated with the evolution and diversification of land plants, at the level of the cell, individual, population, and the community Understand how these key innovations have allowed the evolution of complex relationships between plants and other species. These lie along a continuum between mutualistic and antagonistic interactions, depending on species involved, and the context in which they are interacting.
	Be able to discuss the possible role of such interactions in the rapid and astonishing diversification of the angiosperms (Darwin’s “abominable mystery”), and how we can test the causes of such diversification using experimental, phenotypic, genomic, and phylogenetic approaches.
	Be able to relate the phenotypic and behavioural diversification of land plants to aspects of life history and genomic evolution, and to conflict and cooperation within as well as between genomes. Understand how the genetic and genomic variation among and within species resulting from these interactions has been exploited by human breeders in the domestication of crops, and the role of such crops in human (and non-human) civilisations and cultures.
	Understand the role of plant ecosystems and their biodiversity for human economies, climate stability, and food security, and ongoing loss of this biodiversity.
	Have a practical understanding of how to handle real data from evolutionary and ecological studies, as well as how to analyse, interpret and present such data.
	Be able to design research programmes, or interpret data from other scientists’ work, to formulate and test hypotheses associated with all of the above.