Grigoriev noted that the Selaginella genome helps fill in a large gap in plant evolution from the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas, sequenced at the DOE JGI and published in 2007, to flowering plants with vascular systems. “Selaginella occupies a phylogenetically important position for which we had no reference,” he said. “On one end of the spectrum we had mosses such as Physcomitrella” — the first moss to have its genome sequenced and published by DOE JGI — “and on the other are angiosperms such as grasses including Brachypodium,” whose genome was published by DOE JGI last year.
Read more on redOrbit