Ivans Abstract : Mechanical forces are omnipresent and have profound effects on the growth and development of all organisms and cells. We focus on the evolution of organellar mechanosensing (ability to perceive force) within the green lineage. To that end, we use multiple model systems with key phylogenetic positions (moss Physcomitrium patens, flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii). In previous work, we showed that land plant (moss and Arabidopsis) homologs of PIEZO mechanosensitive ion channels dramatically diverged from their animal counterparts, both with respect to their subcellular localization and their function. The PIEZO channel family was first discovered in animals where these calcium/cation channels play many essential functions including touch perception. However, unlike plasma membrane/ER-localized animal homologs, land plant PIEZOs localize to the vacuolar membrane and modulate its morphology by promoting membrane invagination. This divergence likely reflects an adaptation to the fundamentally different cellular mechanics in plant and animal cells. We are currently trying to better understand the evolutionary history of that divergence as well as the molecular mechanisms behind mechanically induced vacuolar remodeling in plant cells.