Biogenic Silica Production in Selected Alpine Plant Species and Plant Communities

Carnelli, Adriana L.

doi:10.1006/anbo.2000.1355

Cited by 122 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Exceptions are Gnetum gnemon and Cycas revoluta, which have greater than 1% dry weight silica. Beyond gnetophytes and cycads, however, there is a general paucity of silica in gymnosperms, suggesting this form of biomineralization is not an important feature of their biology (23,29,30).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Four hundred million years of silica biomineralization in land plants

Trembath‐Reichert

Wilson

McGlynn

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

117

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Biomineralization plays a fundamental role in the global silicon cycle. Grasses are known to mobilize significant quantities of Si in the form of silica biominerals and dominate the terrestrial realm today, but they have relatively recent origins and only rose to taxonomic and ecological prominence within the Cenozoic Era. This raises questions regarding when and how the biological silica cycle evolved. To address these questions, we examined silica abundances of extant members of early-diverging land plant clades, which show that silica biomineralization is widespread across terrestrial plant linages. Particularly high silica abundances are observed in lycophytes and early-diverging ferns. However, silica biomineralization is rare within later-evolving gymnosperms, implying a complex evolutionary history within the seed plants. Electron microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy show that the most common silica-mineralized tissues include the vascular system, epidermal cells, and stomata, which is consistent with the hypothesis that biomineralization in plants is frequently coupled to transpiration. Furthermore, sequence, phylogenetic, and structural analysis of nodulin 26-like intrinsic proteins from diverse plant genomes points to a plastic and ancient capacity for silica accumulation within terrestrial plants. The integration of these two comparative biology approaches demonstrates that silica biomineralization has been an important process for land plants over the course of their >400 My evolutionary history.phytolith | fern | lycophyte | silicon | aquaporin I n modern ecosystems, land plants play a major role in the silica cycle through the accumulation and synthesis of amorphous biominerals composed of SiO 2 , known as phytoliths or silica bodies. It is widely appreciated that actively accumulating plants such as grasses are important components of the terrestrial biological pump of silica (1-3). Plant silica also plays a key role in connecting the terrestrial and marine carbon cycles, because silica is an important nutrient for marine silica-biomineralizing primary producers (i.e., diatoms) (1, 2, 4-7). However, both grasses and diatoms evolved in the latter part of the Mesozoic Era (8-10) and rose to ecological dominance within the Cenozoic Era (6,9,(11)(12)(13)(14). Determining precisely when and how the terrestrial-marine silica teleconnections evolved remains an obstacle to reconstructing the history of the silica cycle.Direct analysis of silica bodies in the fossil record provides limited insight into this problem. When fossiliferous material is macerated, it is often challenging to identify whether residual silica bodies are the result of primary biomineralization or secondary diagenetic processes, and if a living plant origin is suspected, it is often difficult to assign taxonomic identity to the phytolith producer. In addition, with rare exceptions (e.g., ref.15), lagerstätten that preserve exceptional anatomical detail in fossils, and might therefore be expected to preserve silica bodies, tend to be over...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Four hundred million years of silica biomineralization in land plants

Trembath‐Reichert

Wilson

McGlynn

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

117

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“…Phytoliths are released in the topsoil through organic matter decomposition (Smithson, 1956). The biomineralization of amorphous silica seems to be restricted to some plant families (Epstein, 1999;Hodson et al, 2005) and appear in various shapes depending on the location of Si deposits and plant species (Carnelli et al, 2001(Carnelli et al, , 2004. The International Code for Phytolith Nomenclature (ICPN) has been proposed to describe and name phytoliths (Madella et al, 2005), as the preservation of phytoliths in terrestrial and aquatic paleoenvironments can be used for reconstructing past environments and human activity (Piperno, 1988;Pearsall and Piperno, 1993;Piperno and Stothert, 2003).…”

Section: Si Recyling By Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracing the origin of dissolved silicon transferred from various soil-plant systems towards rivers: a review

et al. 2011

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“…They are produced in great amounts in grasses (Carnelli et al, 2001), but they are also present in various other plant families. Due to their chemical composition, they can resist mechanical, physical or biological processes and are thus concentrated in herbivore faeces (Albert and Vilà , 2002;Brochier, 1983Brochier, , 1991Brochier, , 2002Shahack-Gross et al, 2003).…”

Section: Phytolithmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shepherds and plants in the Alps: multi-proxy archaeobotanical analysis of neolithic dung from “La Grande Rivoire” (Isère, France)

Delhon

Martin

Argant

et al. 2008

Journal of Archaeological Science

114

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a b s t r a c tThe analysis of phytoliths, pollen, charcoal and other macroremains was carried out in the neolithic shelter of ''La Grande Rivoire'', Vercors massif (French Alps). The results show the predominance of tree species, in the form of phytoliths, clustered pollen, stomata, small branches charcoal, needles, bark, buds. The practice of leaf fodder is already known in the alpine and circum-alpine area from archaeological and historical sources. The analyses of the neolithic dung levels of ''La Grande Rivoire'' illustrate the use of leafy and flowering tree branches as fodder. The results also suggest that some species were used for special purpose in relation with the tending of livestock (litter, dietary supplement, veterinary practices).

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Biogenic Silica Production in Selected Alpine Plant Species and Plant Communities

Cited by 122 publications

References 38 publications

Four hundred million years of silica biomineralization in land plants

Four hundred million years of silica biomineralization in land plants

Tracing the origin of dissolved silicon transferred from various soil-plant systems towards rivers: a review

Shepherds and plants in the Alps: multi-proxy archaeobotanical analysis of neolithic dung from “La Grande Rivoire” (Isère, France)

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