Divergent responses in desiccation experiments in two ecophysiologically different Zygnematophyceae.

Water scarcity can be considered a major stressor on land, with desiccation being its most extreme form. Land plants have found two different solutions to this challenge: avoidance and tolerance. The closest algal relatives to land plants, the Zygnematophyceae, use the latter, and how this is realized is of great interest for our understanding of the conquest of land.