The Glossopteris flora of Manuguru Area, Godavari Graben, Telangana, India

Glossopteris‐type leaves are the most abundant floristic element from the Gondwanan continent and are recorded throughout the Permian, which was a period of extreme icehouse‐to‐hothouse climatic global change. Fossil leaf traits can be useful for the reconstruction of palaeoenvironments and identification of climatic changes throughout geological time, but the conservative morphology of Glossopteris leaves has thus far made them difficult to use for this purpose. If the characters of Glossopteris can be better quantified then it should make them useful for tracking environmental changes over a wide geographical area and over a long time interval. Venation density is a highly variable leaf trait that might be useful for this purpose. This trait can be calculated, usually as vein length per centimetre squared, but this can be a time‐consuming procedure. In this paper we propose a new rapid method to estimate venation density in a conical sector of Glossopteris leaf lamina using an accurate linear model whose predictors are three linear venation densities, measured as veins per centimetre. In addition to substantially reducing the data collection time, it is less biased and more reproducible than methods applied previously with this leaf type. Using this more robust method, preliminary results significantly distinguish the venation densities of leaves produced in wet and drier ecosystems, matching a pattern similar to modern plants. This is the first survey using a large sample size to reveal that environmental stress controlled the vein architecture of Palaeozoic plants, in a manner similar to plants in modern ecosystems.

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“…1984; Bajpai 1986; McLoughlin 1994 a ; Tewari et al . 2012, 2015, 2017; Agnihotri et al . 2016; Pillai et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An efficient method for estimating vein density ofGlossopterisand its application

2023

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Comprehensive Record of Megafossils from the Rajmahal Basin, Jharkhand, India

Joshi¹

2023

IJG

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The study provides the first comprehensive record of the plant megafossils mainly Glossopteris flora from the Barakar Formation, Rajmahal Open Cast Mine, Rajmahal Basin, Jharkhand. The assemblage is composed of pteridophytes and gymnosperms. The pteridophytes comprise Equisetalean axes (order Equisetales), whereas, gymnosperms include nine species of Glossopteris including Glossopteris communis, G. damudica, G. gigas, G. indica, G. lanceolatus, G. longicaulis, G. oldhamii, G. taenioides, G. tenuifolia along with Vertebraria indica and Noeggerathiopsis hislopi. The present investigation adds to the knowledge of the Glossopteris flora of India, especially that of the Rajmahal Basin from where the plant fossil records are sporadic. The area is a treasure for palaeobotanical studies as evinced by different fossil localities. However, the localities are degraded by mining activities performed by private companies and hence systematic investigation for such vegetation is vital to create a palaeobotanical database before their complete degradation. The floral assemblage compares with earlier known assemblages, recorded from the Barakar Formation of other Lower Gondwana basins of peninsular India.

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Arthropod interactions with the Permian Glossopteris flora

McLoughlin

Prevec

Slater

2021

JPS

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An extensive survey of literature on the Permian floras of Gondwana reveals over 500 discrete arthropod–herbivory– damage/plant–taxon/stratigraphic–unit associations spanning all regions of the supercontinent from the earliest Asselian to the latest Changhsingian. Margin– and apex–feeding damage is the most common style of herbivory but hole– and surface–feeding, galling, and oviposition damage are locally well represented. Evidence for skeletonization and mucivory is sparse and that for leaf mining is equivocal. Wood and root boring is recognized widely but only where depositional conditions were conducive to the permineralization of plant axes. Wood boring and detritivory may have been especially favoured arthropod feeding strategies in Permian high latitudes where living foliage was scarce during the polar winters. Herbivory damage is most strongly apparent on glossopterid remains; other groups of broad–leafed gymnosperms and sphenopsids host moderate levels of damage. Damage features are under–represented on lycophytes, ferns and spine– and scale–leafed conifers. A survey of insect body fossils from the Gondwanan Permian reveals that most records are from a small number of rich assemblages that are dominated by Blattodea, Hemiptera, Grylloblattida, Mecoptera and Protelytroptera, accompanied by significant representations of Coleoptera, Glosselytrodea, Miomoptera, Neuroptera, Odonata, Protorthoptera, Palaeodictyopteroida, Paoliida, Paraplecoptera, Plecoptera, Psocoptera, Thysanoptera and Trichoptera, which collectively adopted a broad range of feeding styles. Oribatid mites and collembolans appear to have been important components of the wood–boring and detritivorous communities. Although temporal trends in herbivory styles and diversity are difficult to resolve from mostly incidental observations and illustrations of plant damage across Gondwana, the results of this study provide a baseline of qualitative data for future studies that should adopt a quantitative approach to the analysis of herbivory, spanning the shift from icehouse to hothouse conditions through the Permian of the Southern Hemisphere.

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The Glossopteris flora of Manuguru Area, Godavari Graben, Telangana, India

Cited by 3 publications

References 12 publications

An efficient method for estimating vein density ofGlossopterisand its application

An efficient method for estimating vein density ofGlossopterisand its application

Comprehensive Record of Megafossils from the Rajmahal Basin, Jharkhand, India

Arthropod interactions with the Permian Glossopteris flora

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