Editing Spore (section)

== Origin ==
Spores have been found in [[microfossil]]s dating back to the mid-late [[Ordovician]] period.<ref name="Wellman-2000b"/> Two hypothesized initial functions of spores relate to whether they appeared before or after land plants. The heavily studied hypothesis is that spores were an adaptation of early land plant species, such as [[embryophyte]]s, that allowed for plants to easily disperse while adapting to their non-aquatic environment.<ref name="Wellman-2000b" /><ref name="Norem-1958">{{Cite journal |last=Norem |first=W. L. |date=1958 |title=Keys for the Classification of Fossil Spores and Pollen |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1300785 |journal=Journal of Paleontology |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=666–676 |jstor=1300785 |issn=0022-3360}}</ref> This is particularly supported by the observation of a thick spore wall in [[cryptospore]]s. These spore walls would have protected potential offspring from novel weather elements.<ref name="Wellman-2000b" /> The second more recent hypothesis is that spores were an early predecessor of land plants and formed during errors in the [[meiosis]] of [[algae]], a hypothesized early ancestor of land plants.<ref name="Strother-2021">{{Cite journal |last1=Strother |first1=Paul K. |last2=Foster |first2=Clinton |date=2021-08-13 |title=A fossil record of land plant origins from charophyte algae |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj2927 |journal=Science |language=en |volume=373 |issue=6556 |pages=792–796 |doi=10.1126/science.abj2927 |pmid=34385396 |bibcode=2021Sci...373..792S |issn=0036-8075}}</ref>

Whether spores arose before or after land plants, their contributions to topics in fields like [[paleontology]] and plant [[phylogenetics]] have been useful.<ref name="Strother-2021" /> The spores found in microfossils, also known as cryptospores, are well preserved due to the fixed material they are in as well as how abundant and widespread they were during their respective time periods. These microfossils are especially helpful when studying the early periods of earth as macrofossils such as plants are not common nor well preserved.<ref name="Wellman-2000b" /> Both cryptospores and modern spores have diverse morphology that indicate possible environmental conditions of earlier periods of Earth and evolutionary relationships of plant species.<ref name="Wellman-2000b" /><ref name="Strother-2021" /><ref name="Norem-1958" />