The exhibition was created as part of a priority programme funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG): MAdLand - Molecular Adaptation to Land.
The priority programme MAdLand - Molecular Adaptation to Land: plant evolution to change, funded by the German Research Foundation, aims to understand how plants can adapt to such drastic environmental changes.
The exhibition Green, Rrocks, Earth - Our Changing World was conceived as part of the MAdLand project by the Institute of Molecular Evolution at HHU under the direction of Prof. Dr Sven Gould and Dr Mona Schreiber from the University of Marburg and realised together with the HHU Botanical Garden.
How did our Earth become a green planet?
After the Earth was formed, it didn't take long for the first life to emerge. Around 4 billion years ago, LUCA lived, the last common ancestor of bacteria and archaea, from which further life then developed. Subsequently, cyanobacteria ‘invented’ photosynthesis - which almost led to a catastrophe for early life due to the associated release of oxygen. The first complex cells were formed, from which plants, fungi and animals developed.
Until 500 million years ago, the earth's surface was still an inhospitable rocky desert. The first land plants then developed from freshwater algae and over the next few million years made the earth's surface arable. Animals and we humans followed - without the landfall of plants, nothing would be as we know it today. Humans only occupy a tiny moment on the evolutionary time scale, but in the short ‘Anthropocene’ they have since changed the earth at a rapid pace, right up to man-made climate change. The exhibition ‘Green, Stones, Earth - Our Changing World’ traces the origin of life on our planet and its transformation in four major thematic blocks. The focus is on the development of plants:
The origin of the universe, life, photosynthesis and the first complex cells through (endo)symbiosis.
About the landfall of an alga and the groups of plants that subsequently evolved.
About the success of seed plants, how we use them today and how we try to safeguard them in gene banks.
How have we arrived in the Anthropocene after 4 billion years and what impact does this have on biomass?
Each of the 19 exhibition panels contains a QR code that visitors can use to call up further details.
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The exhibition was created under the direction of Sven B. Gould (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf) and Mona Schreiber (University of Marburg) and was created and funded as part of the DFG-funded priority programme ‘MAdLand - Molecular Adaptation to Land’. The researchers from the Priority Programme were significantly involved in the creation of the poster series and we would like to thank them all for their help! In particular, we would like to thank the following people who were significantly involved in the creation of the corresponding posters: #5 Streptophytic algae - Tim Rieseberg, Jan de Vries #6, #7, #8, #9 Bryophyta - Svenja Nötzold, Erika Csicsely, Maria Lozano Quiles, Sabine Zachgo #13 Plant sex - Stefan Rensing #16 Climate change - Yasoo Morimoto, Sophie Rieth, Anja Holzhausen, Evelyn Vollmeister #14 Biomass - Wenke Ludwig #15 Crop plants - Evelyn Vollmeister #17 Gene banks - Stephanie Frohn, Jozefus Schippers, Sabine Zachgo #18 Botanists - Claus Schwechheimer
Credit:
Schreiber, M., & Gould, S. (2023). Grün, Steine, Erde. Unsere Welt im Wandel. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7963098
The panels for our exhibition were kindly provided by Prof Dr Stefan Rensing from the University of Freiburg.
Copyright © Botanischer Garten 2025
Last update: Feb 28, 2025
