A groundbreaking international scientific collaboration has been launched to map the evolutionary history of land plants, aiming to address critical challenges in biodiversity conservation, food security, and pharmaceutical development. The PLANeT initiative, involving over 40 research institutions worldwide including China’s Botanical Society, Peking University, and the Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, represents one of the most comprehensive plant genomics projects ever undertaken.
According to Dr. Wang Li, a leading researcher at the Shenzhen genomics institute, the project addresses a fundamental knowledge gap: despite hundreds of millions of years of plant evolution, scientists still lack a clear understanding of how major plant groups are related. More than 99% of land plant species currently lack high-quality reference genomes, significantly limiting evolutionary and genetic studies.
The ambitious initiative will systematically sample plant groups at key taxonomic levels that currently lack reference genomes. Using advanced phylogenomic methods that combine evolutionary biology with genomics, researchers plan to construct a high-resolution phylogenetic tree of land plants. This framework will help scientists trace critical evolutionary nodes and understand both shared genetic traits and unique characteristics across plant species.
To manage the massive volume of genomic data, the project will integrate artificial intelligence into its research framework. Dr. Wang explains the innovative approach: “Just as language models learn grammar and meaning from large amounts of text, genomic language models can learn the ‘common language’ of plants.” By analyzing tens of thousands of plant genomes, AI systems will be trained to recognize conserved DNA sequence patterns, regulatory networks, and functional modules embedded in DNA sequences.
The project has already completed genome assemblies for representative species from all orders of angiosperms (flowering plants). Its ambitious goals include identifying 1,000 bioactive natural products for drug discovery, discovering 100 potential new economic crops, and establishing what researchers term “a common language of land plants.”
Beyond biodiversity conservation, the genomic data is expected to revolutionize crop improvement strategies in response to climate change. By identifying genes crucial for disease resistance, drought tolerance, and salt tolerance, researchers hope to accelerate the development of climate-resilient crops and strengthen global food security.
The initiative also promises to transform conservation efforts. While traditional conservation has been constrained by limited field observations, genomic information will enable scientists to identify species experiencing genetic erosion more efficiently, allowing for better-informed protection strategies and more accurate extinction risk assessments.
Professor Chong Kang, president of China’s Botanical Society and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, emphasized the project’s far-reaching implications: “We can foresee that the project will greatly drive research across a broad spectrum of fields—from fundamental studies and biodiversity conservation to crop improvement and natural product-inspired drug discovery.”
The PLANeT initiative represents a significant step toward unlocking the genetic potential of Earth’s plant diversity, with applications spanning medicine, agriculture, and environmental conservation.