Education
Ph.D. Botany, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1996
M.A. English, The Ohio State University, 1986
B.A. Mathematics, The University of the South, 1980
Research Interests
My research interests center on broad questions in plant evolutionary biology, including: the evolutionary origin of land plants from the green algae; the evolutionary origin and early diversification of vascular plants; the evolution of plant apical meristems and cell wall compounds; and use of algae and lower land plants as simple model systems for understanding the evolution of higher plant cell and developmental biology. My approach is to study character evolution at the cellular level by examining a number of phylogenetically significant taxa. Most of what we know about plants is due to studies of highly derived seed plants, such as the economically important flowering plants and conifers. I examine cellular features of the more basal seedless plants and their algal relatives in order to understand how characteristics of plants may have evolved. I employ both scanning and transmission electron microscopy, as well as brightfield and fluorescence light microscopy in my work.
Publications
Graham L. E., L. W. Wilcox, M. E. Cook, P. G. Gensel. 2004. Resistant tissues of modern marchantioid liverworts resemble enigmatic Early Paleozoic microfossils. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101:11025–11029.
Graham L. E., M. E. Cook. 2004 Approaches to understanding the origin and early evolution of plant body symmetry and gravity responses. Gravitational and Space Biology Bulletin 17:127–132.
Cook, M. E. 2004. Structure and asexual reproduction of the enigmatic charophycean green alga Entransia fimbriata (Klebsormidiales, Charophyceae). Journal of Phycology 40: 424–431.
Cook, M. E. 2004. Cytokinesis in Coleochaete orbicularis (Charophyceae): an ancestral mechanism inherited by plants. American Journal of Botany 91:313–320.
Graham, L. E., R. G. Kodner, M. M. Fisher, J. M. Graham, L. W. Wilcox, J. M. Hackney, J. Obst, P. C. Bilkey, D. T. Hanson, M. E. Cook. 2003. Early land plant adaptations to stress: a focus on phenolics. In The Evolution of Plant Physiology, A. R. Hemsley and I. Poole [eds.], Academic Press, London. pp. 155–170.
Cook, M. E., J. L. Croxdale. 2003. Ultrastructure of potato tubers formed in microgravity under controlled environmental conditions. Journal of Experimental Botany 54:2157–2164.
Friedman W. E., M. E. Cook. 2000. The origin and early evolution of tracheids in vascular plants: integration of palaeobotanical and neobotanical data. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London— Series B: Biological Sciences 355:857–868.
Graham L. E., M. E. Cook, J. S. Busse. 2000. The origin of plants: body plan changes contributing to a major evolutionary radiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97:4535–4540.
Cook M. E., L. E. Graham. 1999. Evolution of plasmodesmata. In Plasmodesmata: Nanochannels with Megatasks, A. J. E. van Bel and W. J. P. van Kesteren [eds.], Springer-Verlag, pp. 101–117.
Cook, M. E., J. L. Croxdale, T. W. Tibbetts, G. Goins, C. S. Brown, R. M. Wheeler. 1998. Development and growth of potato tubers in microgravity. Advances in Space Research 21:1103–1110.
Cook, M. E., W. E. Friedman. 1998. Tracheid structure in a primitive extant plant provides an evolutionary link to earliest fossil tracheids. International Journal of Plants Sciences 159:881–890.
Cook, M. E., L. E. Graham. 1998. Structural similarities between surface layers of selected charophycean algae and bryophytes and the cuticles of vascular plants. International Journal of Plant Sciences 159:780–787.
Cook, M. E., L. E. Graham, C. A. Lavin. 1998. Cytokinesis and nodal anatomy in the charophycean green alga Chara zeylanica. Protoplasma 203:65–74.
Croxdale, J. L., M. E. Cook, T. W. Tibbitts, C. S. Brown, R. M. Wheeler. 1997. Structure of potato tubers formed during spaceflight. Journal of Experimental Botany 48:2037–2043.
Cook, M. E., L. E. Graham, C. E. J. Botha, C. A. Lavin. 1997. Comparative ultrastructure of plasmodesmata of Chara and selected bryophytes: toward an elucidation of the evolutionary origin of plasmodesmata. American Journal of Botany 84:1169–1178.
Kroken, S. B., L. E. Graham, M. E. Cook. 1996. Occurrence and evolutionary significance of resistant cell walls in charophytes and bryophytes. American Journal of Botany 83:1241–1254.
