Palaeobotanical experiences of plant diversity in deep time. 1: How well can we identify past plant diversity in the fossil record?

Cleal, Christopher J.; Pardoe, Heather S.; Berry, Christopher Mark; Cascales‐Miñana, Borja; Davis, Basil A.S.; Diez, José B.; Filipova-Marinova, Mariana; Giesecke, Thomas; Hilton, Jason; Ivanov, Dimiter; Kustatscher, Evelyn; Leroy, Suzanne A G; McElwain, Jennifer C.; Opluštil, Stanislav; Popa, Mihai Emilian; Seyfullah, Leyla J.; Stolle, Ellen; Thomas, Barry A.; Uhl, Dieter

doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110481

Cited by 28 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 285 publications

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“…Macrofossil and palynological data tend to reveal evidence of different aspects of plant diversity, and the best results are obtained if the two diversity signals are integrated (Cleal et al, 2021; Pardoe et al, 2021). Despite the inherent difficulties, the plant fossil record provides clear evidence of the dynamic vegetation history through deep times.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First record of late Carboniferous palynoassemblage from Ganmachidam Formation, Spiti Valley: Implications for age assessment and extent of Glossopterid elements in the Tethyan realm

Gupta

Saxena²,

Shabbar³

et al. 2022

Geological Journal

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The present work elucidates miofloral records from the Ganmachidam Formation (late Carboniferous-earliest Permian) of Spiti Valley, Tethyan Himalaya. The Ganmachidam Formation was hitherto considered as unfossiliferous, both for the faunal as well as floral records, and has been subjected to contentious age assessment. The present study has been carried out to find out the microfloral remains, assess the palynostratigraphic status, and the age of the Ganmachidam Formation. From the splintery shale sequence, a rich assemblage of palynomorphs has been recovered, having a dominance of monosaccate pollen grains, namely Parasaccites (Cannanoropollis), Crucisaccites, Divarisaccus, Densipollenites, Maculatasporites, followed by diverse bisaccate pollen grains, namely Scheuringipollenites, Crescentipollenites, Faunipollenites (Protohaploxypinus), Lunatisporites, Striatopodocarpites, Striatites, Rhizomaspora, Primuspollenites, and the spores Callumispora (Punctatisporites) and Calamospora in addition to woody fragments and fungal spores. Three palynoassemblages are identified. The recovered palynocomposition is corroborated with known records of palynomorphs from the Tethyan realm of India and from the late Carboniferous-Early Permian records of contemporaneous sequences across the globe. The composition of these palynoassemblages shows close correlation with the Crucisaccites monoletus Zone and Vittatina costabilis Interval Zone in the northeastern area of the Paraná Basin, Brazil, and lower Barakar palynozone (Scheuringipollenites barakarensis Assemblage Zone) of Peninsular India which indicates the studied section of the Ganmachidam Formation is late Pennsylvanian to early Permian in age. Moreover, occurrences of palynomorphs from the Carboniferous sequences having a glossopterid affinity further strengthen the idea that glossopterids might have originated in Carboniferous time.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First record of late Carboniferous palynoassemblage from Ganmachidam Formation, Spiti Valley: Implications for age assessment and extent of Glossopterid elements in the Tethyan realm

Gupta

Saxena²,

Shabbar³

et al. 2022

Geological Journal

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“…Our plant fossil database, including macrofossil and palynology data from the end Permian to the Middle Triassic, is detailed in the Supplementary Information Table S4 and S5. As fossil plants are typically fragmented prior to fossilization, all plant fossil records have been normalized 23 to reduce artefacts of palaeobotanical nomenclature (see Methods for details). Normalization compensates for the palaeobotanical practice of assigning different plant organs (e.g., roots, stems, leaves, cones and seeds) of the same plant to separate fossil genera and species 21 .…”

Section: Full Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Normalization compensates for the palaeobotanical practice of assigning different plant organs (e.g., roots, stems, leaves, cones and seeds) of the same plant to separate fossil genera and species 21 . For each plant group, we selected the most representative plant organ to analyze and omitted other organs that belong to the same plant group, to avoid duplication 23 . For example, for tree lycopods we used species of the stem genus Lepidodendron, which are the most common fossils and are readily distinguished from one another, and we excluded other organs from tree lycopods, including their cones, sporophylls (fertile leaves) and leafy branches and leaves that carry different genus and species names 21 .…”

Section: Full Textmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plant macrofossils are typically fragmented into parts (organs) prior to fossilization, with each part typically named separately using Linnean binomials 23 . We normalized the dataset to correct for potential duplications in which different parts of the same plant may be included under different species or genus names.…”

Section: Plant Macrofossil and Palynology Data Stepsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For diverse leaf groups, for example ferns and sphenophytes, leaf species or genera are used, as these fossils typically lack more distinctive organs with suitable preservation. An example is the diverse trunk group of tree lycopods, where species of Lepidodendron are used as they are abundant and systematically informative 23,52 , rather than other organs produced by the same plant, including cones, sporophylls (fertile leaves) or roots (see ref. 21 for detail).…”

Section: Plant Macrofossil and Palynology Data Stepsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early Triassic super-greenhouse climate driven by vegetation collapse

Yin

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The Permian–Triassic Mass Extinction (PTME), life’s most severe crisis1, has been attributed to intense global warming triggered by CO2 emissions from Large Igneous Province volcanism2–8. It remains unclear, however, why super-greenhouse conditions persisted for around five million years after the volcanic episode, when Earth system feedbacks should have returned temperatures to pre-extinction levels within a few hundred thousand years8. Here we use fossil occurrences and lithological indicators of climate to reconstruct spatio-temporal maps of plant productivity and biomass changes through the Permian–Triassic and undertake climate-biogeochemical modelling to investigate the unusual longevity and intensity of warming. Our reconstructions show that terrestrial vegetation collapse during the PTME, especially in tropical regions, resulted in an Earth system with low levels of organic carbon sequestration and chemical weathering, leading to limited drawdown of greenhouse gases. This led to a protracted period of extremely high surface temperatures, during which biotic recovery was delayed for millions of years. Our results support the idea that thresholds exist in the climate-carbon system beyond which warming may be amplified substantially.

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Macrofloral biostratigraphy reflects late Carboniferous vegetation dynamics in the Nord‐Pas‐de‐Calais Coalfield, France

Molina‐Solís,

Cleal,

Monnet

et al. 2024

Papers in Palaeontology

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The Nord‐Pas‐de‐Calais Coalfield is formed by an almost continuous succession of upper Carboniferous deposits, from which an extremely diverse macroflora has historically been described. Recent evidence has highlighted a clear pattern of changing species diversity, showing some differences from what is seen in other coalfields of Variscan Euramerica. We further study this significant macroflora, focusing on the biostratigraphical changes and their palaeoecological implications. Clustering and ordination analyses have indicated key floral discontinuities that enable the standard regional macrofloral biozones to be recognized in the Nord‐Pas‐de‐Calais Coalfield. By combining these results with the previous diversity studies, six distinct phases in the evolution of the coal swamp vegetation in north‐eastern France can be identified: (1) an initial invasion of peat substrate vegetation in the earliest Langsettian; (2) a rapid diversification of the clastic substrate vegetation in the early–middle Langsettian; (3) a more gradual diversification of the vegetation of both clastic and peat substrates during the late Langsettian to middle Duckmantian glacial phase C3; (4) the appearance of more characteristically late Westphalian, but less diverse floras during the late Duckmantian to early Bolsovian C3–C4 interglacial phase; (5) a marked increase in species diversity in the middle–late Bolsovian, coinciding with the onset of the C4 glacial phase; and (6) a marked reduction in species diversity, and the appearance of new medullosaleans and marattialeans in the Asturian, possibly linked to climate change. The evidence clearly shows how this palaeotropical swamp vegetation was responding to climate change and orogenic landscape changes during Westphalian times.

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Palaeobotanical experiences of plant diversity in deep time. 1: How well can we identify past plant diversity in the fossil record?

Cited by 28 publications

References 285 publications

First record of late Carboniferous palynoassemblage from Ganmachidam Formation, Spiti Valley: Implications for age assessment and extent of Glossopterid elements in the Tethyan realm

First record of late Carboniferous palynoassemblage from Ganmachidam Formation, Spiti Valley: Implications for age assessment and extent of Glossopterid elements in the Tethyan realm

Early Triassic super-greenhouse climate driven by vegetation collapse

Macrofloral biostratigraphy reflects late Carboniferous vegetation dynamics in the Nord‐Pas‐de‐Calais Coalfield, France

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