What are the evolutionary advantages non-vascular plants over vascular plants?
Scientists possess fossil records that lead them to believe that plants evolved during four distinct periods. Nonvascular plants arose first, during the late Ordovician period of the Paleozoic Era, approximately 460 million years ago.Scientists also believe that living in shallow water was a preadaptation to living on land. Natural selection probably favored algae (living on the fringes of bodies of water) that could survive through periods when they were not submerged. Waxy cuticles and jacketed organs, both characteristics of nonvascular plants, are possible adaptations that the algae developed to survive in these conditions. Non-vascular plants can be useful indicators of environmental conditions. For example, some mosses are strict calcicoles, and they will only grow where calcium is freely available in the substrate. Nonvascular plants are also particularly susceptible to air and water pollution, which makes them good indicators of the purity of the environment. For example, in th
