Imaged Based Morphological Study of Bryophytes and Green Algae for Identifying Evolutionary Relationship between Them

It is well-known that all plants of the land evolved from a green algal ancestor. Bryophytes represent the first step in the evolution of plants from algae and also it is the first step in the transition of multicellular autotrophic eukaryotes from water onto the land. The latest phylogenetic studies prove that the bryophytes as a group share a common ancestor with green algae. Also, the DNA-study supports this close evolutionary relationship between bryophytes and green algae. A few other studies such as cell wall elongation, origin of cuticle etc. establish that both bryophytes and algae share a common ancestor. This paper presents the findings of our latest image based morphological studies on evolutionary relationship between bryophytes and green algae based on their morphologies. Features used in this study include compactness, area, perimeter and number of serrations of sample images of thallus of these two species.