Dr Sandy Hetherington
Research interests/expertise: Plant evolution, Palaeobotany with a special focus on Scottish fossil plant localities including the Rhynie chert. Broad investigations of plant evolution and development.
Sandy is an evolutionary palaeobiologist interested in how plants diversified on land, giving rise to the green planet we know today. He works at the interface between the Life and Earth Sciences and takes a ‘Molecular Palaeobotany’ approach, combining studies of fossil plants with investigation of developmental and genetic networks in living species to characterise the origin and evolution of key land plant innovations, such as vascular tissue, leaves and roots. This work is underpinned by studying exceptionally preserved plant fossils such as those of the Rhynie chert. Alongside his active work with plant fossils, such as those from the Rhynie chert, he is passionate about raising the visibility of plant fossils and their importance for research, geoheritage and understand plant life on a changing planet.
Selected publications
Loron C.C., Cooper L.M., McMahon S., Jordan S.F., Gromov A.V., Humpage M., Pichevin L., Vondracek H., Alexander R., Rodriguez Dzul E., Brasier A.T., Hetherington A.J. 2025. Prototaxites was an extinct lineage of multicellular terrestrial eukaryotes. Preprint on BioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.14.643340
Cruz R., Hetherington A.J. 2025. Identification of a tetrahedral apical cell preserved within a fossilised fern fiddlehead. Current Biology 35: 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.076
Clark J.W., Hetherington A.J., Morris J.L., Pressel S., Duckett J., Puttick M.N., Schneider H., Kenrick P., Wellman C.H., Donoghue P.C. 2023. Evolution of phenotypic disparity in the plant kingdom. Nature Plants 9: 1618-1626. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01513-x
Turner H.A., Humpage M., Kerp H., Hetherington A.J. 2023. Leaves and sporangia developed in rare non-Fibonacci spirals in early leafy plants. Science 380: 1188-1192. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg4014
Hetherington A.J., Bridson S.L., Lee Jones A., Hass H., Kerp H., Dolan L. 2021. An evidence-based 3D reconstruction of Asteroxylon mackiei the most complex plant preserved from the Rhynie chert. eLife10: e69447. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.69447
Hetherington A.J., Emms D.M., Kelly S., Dolan L. 2020. Gene expression data support the hypothesis that Isoetes rootlets are true roots and not modified leaves. Scientific Reports 10: 21547. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78171-y
Hetherington A.J., Berry C.M., Dolan L. 2020. Multiple origins of dichotomous and lateral branching during root evolution. Nature Plants 6: 454-459. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0646-y
Hetherington A.J., Dolan L. 2018. Stepwise and independent origins of roots among land plants. Nature 561: 235–238. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0445-z
Catarino B., Hetherington A.J., Emms D.M., Kelly S., Dolan L. 2016. The stepwise increase in the number of transcription factor families in the Precambrian predated the diversification of plants on land. Molecular Biology and Evolution 33: 2815–2819. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msw155
Hetherington A.J., Berry C.M., Dolan L. 2016. Networks of highly branched stigmarian rootlets developed on the first giant trees. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113: 6695–6700. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1514427113