Global trends of pCO2 across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary supported by the first Southern Hemisphere stomatal proxy-based pCO2 reconstruction

Steinthorsdottir, Margret; Vajda, Vivi; Pole, Mike

doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.04.033

Cited by 37 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…Jordan (2011) suggested that high species variability in the magnitude and sign of stomatal density response to CO 2 between different species weakens the reliability of stomatal-based CO 2 proxies because it breaks the key assumption of evolutionary conservatism. We agree that this is the case for a number of families that have been investigated (Kelly and Beerling, 1995;Kürschner et al, 1997;Haworth et al, 2010); however, other families show strong conservatism in the SD-CO 2 relationship with species belonging to the same genera, and even at the family or order level, clustering together with similar SD/SI values, as well as displaying similar response directions and magnitudes to changes in pCO 2 (McElwain et al, 2002;Barclay et al, 2010;Haworth et al, 2011;Steinthorsdottir et al, 2011a;Steinthorsdottir et al, 2011b;Steinthorsdottir et al, 2016b). This is particularly important when operating in the pre-quaternary fossil record, which does not typically offer fossil plants that are conspecific with modern plants.…”

Section: Assumptions and Limitationssupporting

confidence: 73%

“…Over the past three decades, since publication of Woodward's (Woodward, 1987) seminal article on the inverse relationship between stomatal density and atmospheric CO 2 concentration, the "uncontrolled variability" in stomatal traits such as stomatal density (SD) and stomatal index (SI) has been seized on by paleobiologists as an opportunity to extract meaningful paleoclimatic and paleoecological information from fossil plant stomata (McElwain et al, 2005;Roth-Nebelsick, 2005;Wagner et al, 2005;Kürschner et al, 2008;Lammertsma et al, 2011;Steinthorsdottir et al, 2011b;Franks et al, 2014;Maxbauer et al, 2014;Bai et al, 2015;Montañez et al, 2016;Steinthorsdottir et al, 2016aSteinthorsdottir et al, , 2016b. This has led to a subtle tension in the field of paleobotany, where at one extreme some studies have focused almost exclusively on the taxonomic and systematic utility of stomata with insufficient consideration of environmentally driven variability, while at the other extreme some reconstructions of paleoatmospheric composition have been undertaken using fossil stomatal traits without due consideration for taxonomic determination of the fossils used.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Paleoecology, Ploidy, Paleoatmospheric Composition, and Developmental Biology: A Review of the Multiple Uses of Fossil Stomata

McElwain

2017

Plant Physiol.

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ORCID IDs: 0000-0002-1729-6755 (J.C.M.); 0000-0002-7893-1142 (M.S.).The presence of stomata is a diagnostic trait of all living and extinct land plants with the exception of liverworts. They are preserved widely in the fossil record from anatomically pristine stomatal complexes on permineralized and charcoalified stems of the earliest land plants dating back .400 million years to isolated guard cell pairs in quaternary aged palynological samples. Detailed study of fossil stomatal complexes has been used to track the evolution of genome size and to reconstruct atmospheric composition, to circumscribe new species to science, and to bring ancient landscapes to life by providing both habitat information and insights on fossil plant ecophysiological function and life form. This review explores how fossil stomata can be used to advance our understanding of plant, environment, and atmospheric evolution over the Phanerozoic. We compare the utility of qualitative (e.g. presence/absence of stomatal crypts) versus quantitative stomatal traits (e.g. amphistomaty ratio) in paleoecological reconstructions. A case study on Triassic-Jurassic Ginkgoales is provided to highlight the methodological difficulty of teasing apart the effect of genome size, ploidy, and environment on guard cell size evolution across mass extinction boundaries. We critique both empirical and mechanistic stomatal-based models for paleoCO 2 reconstruction and highlight some key limitations and advantages of both approaches. Finally, we question if different stomatal developmental pathways have ecophysiological consequence for leaf gas exchange and ultimately the application of different stomatal-based CO 2 proxy methods. We conclude that most studies currently only capture a fraction of the potential invaluable information that can be gleaned from fossilized stomata and highlight future approaches to their study that better integrate across the disciplinary boundaries of paleobotany, developmental biology, paleoecology, and plant physiology.The fossil record of land plants (embryophytes) dates back unequivocally to the Middle Ordovician (;460 million years ago [mya]). This is supported by the presence of spore tetrads contained within an enveloping sporangium (Wellman et al., 2003). Since Wellman's discovery, the fossil spore record has revealed older and older spores of various morphologies (naked, enveloped) and configurations (singular, paired, etc.) that may eventually push back even further the accepted date of the oldest land plant (Wellman and Strother, 2015). This early phase in land plant evolution is complex to interpret, however, since no stomata have been discovered so far on the earliest fossilized land plants, suggesting perhaps that they may have been absent, as is the case for the early land plants' algal predecessors. As soon as sheets of fossilized cuticle with true stomata started to appear in Siluran aged (443-419 mya) sediment samples, our ability to taxonomically separate charophyacean algae from land plants based on fragmentary foss...

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Section: Assumptions and Limitationssupporting

confidence: 73%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Paleoecology, Ploidy, Paleoatmospheric Composition, and Developmental Biology: A Review of the Multiple Uses of Fossil Stomata

McElwain

2017

Plant Physiol.

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“…The authors use fossil laurel leaf cuticles recovered from three New Zealand assemblages, which collectively span the latest Cretaceous to mid-Paleocene. Leaf cuticles are commonly used to reconstruct atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (pCO 2 ) by applying stomatal density analysis, which was first developed by McElwain and Chaloner (1995) and this method is employed by Steinthorsdottir et al (2016). The results, which represent the first Southern Hemisphere stomatal density data spanning the K-Pg boundary, are consistent with previously published pCO 2 records from the Northern Hemisphere.…”

Section: The Cretaceoussupporting

confidence: 70%

“…The final paper in this issue takes us to the close of the Mesozoic, to the Cretaceous -Paleogene extinction event seen from a Southern Hemisphere (New Zealand) perspective but with global applications (Steinthorsdottir et al, 2016). The authors use fossil laurel leaf cuticles recovered from three New Zealand assemblages, which collectively span the latest Cretaceous to mid-Paleocene.…”

Section: The Cretaceousmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mesozoic ecosystems – climate and biotas

Vajda

Pole

Sha

2016

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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“…for atmospheric CO 2 concentrations (pCO 2 ) via their stomatal densities (Woodward 1987;Beerling et al 1998;McElwain 1998;Barclay et al 2010;Steinthorsdottir et al 2014;Steinthorsdottir and Vajda 2015,, Steinthorsdottir et al 2016a, Steinthorsdottir et al 2016b). The high preservation potential of plant cuticles as fragments in sediments, often when macrofossils are not available (Steinthorsdottir et al 2011a,b), make them an attractive target for attempting to develop an SO 2 proxy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cuticle surfaces of fossil plants as a potential proxy for volcanic SO2 emissions: observations from the Triassic–Jurassic transition of East Greenland

Steinthorsdottir

Elliott-Kingston

Bacon

2017

Palaeobio Palaeoenv

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Flood basalt volcanism has been implicated in several episodes of mass extinctions and environmental degradation in the geological past, including at the Triassic-Jurassic (Tr-J) transition, through global warming caused by massive outgassing of carbon dioxide. However, the patterns of biodiversity loss observed are complicated and sometimes difficult to reconcile with the effects of global warming alone. Recently, attention has turned to additional volcanic products as potential aggravating factors, in particular sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ). SO 2 acts both directly as a noxious environmental pollutant and indirectly through forming aerosols in the atmosphere, which may cause transient global dimming and cooling. Here, we present a range of morphological changes to fossil plant leaf cuticle surfaces of hundreds of Ginkgoales and Bennettitales specimens across the Tr-J boundary of East Greenland. Our results indicate that morphological structures of distorted cuticles near the Tr-J boundary are consistent with modern cuticle SO 2 -caused damage and supported by recent leaf-shape SO 2 proxy results, thus identifying cuticle surface morphology as a potentially powerful proxy for SO 2 . Recording the timing and duration of SO 2 emissions in the past may help distinguish between the driving agents responsible for mass extinction events and thus improve our understanding of the Earth System.

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Global trends of pCO2 across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary supported by the first Southern Hemisphere stomatal proxy-based pCO2 reconstruction

Cited by 37 publications

References 86 publications

Paleoecology, Ploidy, Paleoatmospheric Composition, and Developmental Biology: A Review of the Multiple Uses of Fossil Stomata

Paleoecology, Ploidy, Paleoatmospheric Composition, and Developmental Biology: A Review of the Multiple Uses of Fossil Stomata

Mesozoic ecosystems – climate and biotas

Cuticle surfaces of fossil plants as a potential proxy for volcanic SO2 emissions: observations from the Triassic–Jurassic transition of East Greenland

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