The molecular sequence data have been utilized immensely to resolve the
phylogeny of bryophytes, primarily the monophyletic relationship of bryophytes and
their position in the evolution of land plants. However, the study also described
division bryophyta as a paraphyletic group with only one of its classes related to the
vascular plants and another one sister to all other land plants. The debatable position of
earliest diverging lineages of the mosses such as Takakia and Sphagnum spp., and other
genera can also be resolved more accurately with increasing knowledge of fast DNA
sequencing techniques and bioinformatics tools. Different nuclear-encoded genes (18S,
26S) or chloroplast genes (trnF-trnL, psbA, rbcL, rps4) and mitochondrial encoded
genes (Cob intron, nad2, nad5) emerge as the suitable marker to understand the deep
level of the molecular phylogeny of bryophytes. The selection of suitable markers,
evolutionary model and phylogenetic tree evaluation methods are necessary for the
better understanding of molecular phylogeny.
Keywords: Bryophytes, DNA sequencing, Molecular phylogeny, Phylogenetic
tree.