Patterns of Gondwana plant colonisation anddiversification |
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| Institution: | 1. Komarov Botanical Institute RAS, ul. Prof. Popova 2, St. Petersburg 197376, Russia;2. Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CD Utrecht, The Netherlands;1. Université Lyon 1 and CNRS UMR 5276, 7 rue Dubois, F69622 Villeurbanne, France;2. Jagiellonian University, Institute of Botany, Department of Palaeobotany and Palaeoherbarium, ul. Lubicz 46, 31-512 Kraków, Poland;3. Faculty of Earth Science, University of Silesia, B?dzińska 60 St, 41-200 Sosnowiec, Poland;4. Hungarian Natural History Museum, Department of Botany, 1476 Budapest, pf. 222, Hungary;5. W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lubicz 46, 31-512 Kraków, Poland;6. Department of Plant Anatomy, Eötvös Loránd University, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary;7. Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany;8. Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Institut für Geowissenschaften, Universität Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany;1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-7534, USA;2. Department of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413, USA;1. Univ Lyon, Université Lyon 1, ENTPE, CNRS, UMR 5023 LEHNA, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France;2. Univ Lyon, Université Lyon 1, ENS-Lyon, CNRS, UMR 5276 LGL-TPE, F-69622, Villeurbanne, France;3. Mathematics and BioSciences Group, Faculty of Mathematics, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria |
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| Abstract: | Charting the broad patterns of vascular plant evolution for Gondwana againstthe major global environmental shifts and events is attempted here for the first time. This is based on the analysis of the major vascular plant-bearing formations of the southern continents (plus India) correlated against the standard geological time-scale. Australia, followed closely by South America, are shown to yield by far the most complete sequences of productive strata. Ten seminal turnover pulses in the unfolding evolutionary picture are identified and seen to be linked to continental drift, climate change and mass global extinctions. The rise of vascular plants along the tropical belt, for instance, followed closely after the end-Ordovician warming and extinction. Equally remarkable is that the Late Devonian extinction may have caused both the terrestrialisation of the vertebrates and the origin of the true gymnosperms. The end-Permian extinction, closure of Iapetus, together with warming, appears to have set in motion an unparalleled, explosive, gymnosperm radiation; whilst the Late Triassic extinction dramatically curtailed it. It is suggested that the latitudinal diversity gradient clearly recognised today, where species richness increases towards the tropics, may have been partly reversed during phases of Hot House climate. Evidence hints at this being particularly so at the heyday of the gymnosperms in the Late Triassic super-Hot House world. As for the origin of terrestrial, vascular, plant life, the angiosperms seem closely linked to a phase of marked shift from Ice House to Hot House.Insect and tetrapod evolutionary patterns are discussed in the context of the plants providing the base of the ever-changing ecosystems. Intimate co-evolution is often evident. This isn't always the case, for example the non-linkage between the dominant, giant, long-necked, herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs and the dramatic radiation of the flowering plants in the Mid Cretaceous. |
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