Further evidence supporting high diversity of cyathealean tree ferns in the Early Cretaceous of Antarctica

Vera, Ezequiel Ignacio

doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2015.04.015

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 36 publications

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“…Fossils and (paleo)distribution data I compiled a set of 101 tree fern fossil specimens, including fossilized stems, fertile fronds, and spores (Supplementary data 1). Briefly, I selected the most reliable fossil specimens from a list of 1,432 entries compiled from the Paleobiological Database, which I revised and complemented with fossil reviews 18,45,46 , new fossil discoveries 30,44,45,[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] , and commonly used fossils for dating 7,38,55,56 ; I excluded fossil specimens for which I could not access the original description. The phylogenetic placement of several fossils, mostly stems, have been previously inferred through phylogenetic analyses 46 , but other fossil assignments rely on the presence of clear apomorphies (for instance, spore morphology) or intuitive criteria.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laurasian legacies in the Gondwanan tree fern order Cyatheales

Ramírez‐Barahona

2023

Preprint

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Present-day geographic and phylogentic patterns often reflect the Gondwana-Laurasia separation and subsequent history of continental drift. However, some lineages show non-overlapping fossil distributions relative to extant species and in some cases extant Gondwanan lineages have Laurasian extinct relatives. Here, I combined distribution data for 101 fossils and 442 extant species of tree ferns (Cyatheales) to reconstruct their biogeographic history over the last 220 million years. The time calibrated tree showed most tree ferns families originating during the Jurassic and the onset of crown group diversification beginning during the Cretaceous; a major shift in diversification rates occurred in the largest tree fern family (Cyatheaceae) that comprises ~90% of extant diversity in the group. Biogeographical reconstructions based on extant distributions alone supported a Gondwanan origin for the group; the most probable ancestral range encompassed Australasia and South America. Alternatively, incorporating fossil distribution data into reconstructions showed a Laurasian origin and a most probable ancestral range in Eurasia. These results evince the Laurasian legacies of the Cyatheales spanning the Triassic-Cretaceous, which otherwise remain hidden from biogeographic inferences. These results show that extant-only biogeographic analyses are limited when fossils distribution are more wide spread than in the present-day, highlighting the need to directly incorporate fossils into biogeographical analyses and improve the reliability of ancestral geographic range estimation.

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