On the Conquest of Land: Time, Mode, and Speciation Patterns across the Green Tree of Life

Dear Colleagues,

The colonization of terrestrial environments by plants has been one of the most significant evolutionary outcomes on Earth. As organisms adapted to life on land, they developed new structures, new functions, and new genetic programs. In the past few decades, the increasing availability of genomic resources has offered substantial advances that enhanced our understanding of the green tree of life. Yet, many interesting questions remain, such as: How many times has multicellularity arisen and when? How many times was land conquered by plants and which are their closest ancestors? How many times have terrestrial plants reversed to aquatic environments? What were the key adaptative features or mechanisms responsible for conquering terrestrial environments? How will they adapt to overcome future environmental changes?

In this context, this Special Issue of Life aims to publish a collection of studies dealing with evolutionary adaptations throughout the green tree of life, incorporating genomic, phylogenetic, and evolutionary parameters (among others). Authors are invited to submit related original research articles, reviews, and communications. The preliminary submission deadline is 15 December 2021, however, a extension date of 28 February 2022 will be considered.

Dr. Isabel Marques
Dr. David Draper Munt
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• biodiversity
• climate change
• demographic decline
• ecology
• evolution
• fossils
• genetics/genomics
• niche models
• plant adaptations
• phylogeography