The Okmulgee, Oklahoma fossil flora, a Mazon Creek equivalent: Spatial conservatism in the composition of Middle Pennsylvanian wetland vegetation over 1100km

Moore, Lillien C.; Wittry, Jack; DiMichele, William A.

doi:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2013.08.002

Cited by 18 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 98 publications

(140 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, many of these plants had large biogeographic ranges across major latitudinal regions and paleoclimate zones within those regions, probably related to their wind‐ and water‐dispersal and pollination mechanisms (e.g. Wagner & Lyons, ; Tidwell & Ash, ; Moore et al ., ; Bashforth et al ., ,b). Exceptions reside mainly in the pteridosperms, where large pollen and seed sizes suggest animal mediation, resulting in somewhat more restricted geographic ranges and shorter temporal ranges/higher species turnover (Raymond & Costanza, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Carboniferous tropical forests: new views of plant function and potential for physiological forcing of climate

et al. 2017

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Contents 1333I.1334II.1335III.1339IV.1344V.1347VI.134713481348References1348 Summary The Carboniferous, the time of Earth's penultimate icehouse and widespread coal formation, was dominated by extinct lineages of early‐diverging vascular plants. Studies of nearest living relatives of key Carboniferous plants suggest that their physiologies and growth forms differed substantially from most types of modern vegetation, particularly forests. It remains a matter of debate precisely how differently and to what degree these long‐extinct plants influenced the environment. Integrating biophysical analysis of stomatal and vascular conductivity with geochemical analysis of fossilized tissues and process‐based ecosystem‐scale modeling yields a dynamic and unique perspective on these paleoforests. This integrated approach indicates that key Carboniferous plants were capable of growth and transpiration rates that approach values found in extant crown‐group angiosperms, differing greatly from comparatively modest rates found in their closest living relatives. Ecosystem modeling suggests that divergent stomatal conductance, leaf sizes and stem life span between dominant clades would have shifted the balance of soil–atmosphere water fluxes, and thus surface runoff flux, during repeated, climate‐driven, vegetation turnovers. This synthesis highlights the importance of ‘whole plant’ physiological reconstruction of extinct plants and the potential of vascular plants to have influenced the Earth system hundreds of millions of years ago through vegetation–climate feedbacks.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Carboniferous tropical forests: new views of plant function and potential for physiological forcing of climate

et al. 2017

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“…age (Wittry 2006). This flora is drawn from an entire drainage basin, including coastal, inland swamp, and low-elevation wet soil habitats, and is compositionally conservative, having been identified across a distance of 11000 km (Moore et al 2014); when accounting is made for taxonomic uncertainties, synonymy, and multiple names for organs of the same plant, a reasonable estimate of diversity appears to be ∼100 species (Pfefferkorn 1979). A broader study of European basins concluded that Pennsylvanian wetland landscapes harbored 40-100 species at any point in space and time, reaching perhaps 120 species at the regional level of 110 5 km 2 , but that there was no significant difference in species diversity between modern flooded coastal swamps and Pennsylvanian wetlands in general (not just swamps).…”

Section: Wetland Floral Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wetland-Dryland Vegetational Dynamics in the Pennsylvanian Ice Age Tropics

DiMichele¹

2014

International Journal of Plant Sciences

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Premise of research. The Late Paleozoic Ice Age was the last extensive pre-Pleistocene ice age. It includes many climate changes of different intensities, permitting examination of many and varied biotic responses. The tropical Pennsylvanian Subperiod, usually visualized as one vast wetland coal forest, in fact also was dominated, periodically, by seasonally dry vegetation that, in turn, covered most of the central and western Pangean supercontinent. Equatorial wetland and dryland biomes oscillated during single glacial-interglacial cycles. This recognition changes understanding of the Coal Age tropics; examination of their spatiotemporal patterns indicates that these vegetation types responded differently to global environmental disturbances and long-term trends and points to potentially different underlying controls on evolutionary histories of their component lineages.Methodology. This study is based on the published literature and on examination of geological exposures and fossil floras, mainly from North America but also from other parts of the world.Pivotal results. Wetlands and seasonally dry habitats were equally part of the Coal Age Pangean tropics. They dominated these landscapes at different times, under different climatic regimes. Wetland vegetation was likely forced into refugia during seasonally dry (subhumid to semiarid) parts of glacial-interglacial cycles; it reemerged/reassembled during wet (humid to perhumid) periods. Seasonally dry vegetation resided permanently in areas of western and central Pangea and in microhabitats within the Central Pangean Mountains. Both floras had lower biodiversity than modern floras in similar habitats. The wetland flora species pool was more phylogenetically disparate than any modern vegetation. In contrast, seasonally dry floras were dominated by seed plants. These biomes responded differently to acute environmental changes and chronic long-term aridification.Conclusions. From ecological or evolutionary perspectives, the present-day world is but one possibility. Lower-diversity worlds such as the late Paleozoic, with a rich spectrum of environmental variations, offer insights into relationships between organisms and environments that expand understanding of these phenomena and enlarge our sense of what is possible or probable as we look to the future.

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“…The 'Braidwood' biota is dominated by flora including horsetails, lycopods and pteridosperm tree fern material (Darrah 1969;Peppers & Pfefferkorn 1970). The vast diversity of plants has been attributed to the washout of plant material from the entire drainage basin of the rivers (DiMichele 2014) and this has resulted in a grossly inflated estimation of the diversity of Pennsylvanian wetland landscapes (DiMichele 2014; Moore et al 2014). Animal fossils are significantly rarer, including reptiles and litter-dwelling invertebrates such as myriapods (Mundel 1979;Hannibal 2000), arachnids (Dunlop 1995), scorpions (Tetlie & Dunlop 2008) and insects, including some of the earliest known cockroach-like animals (Carpenter 1943;Burnham 1983).…”

Section: Palaeo-environmental Information From Organisms?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mazon Creek Lagerstätte: a diverse late Paleozoic ecosystem entombed within siderite concretions

Clements

Purnell

Gabbott

2018

JGS

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One of the best records of late Paleozoic ecosystems, the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte is world famous for its striking flora and fauna preserved within siderite concretions. Distinct from other late Carboniferous concretionary Lagerstätten because of the remarkable fidelity of soft tissues and pigments that are frequently preserved, the Mazon Creek has seen a revival in investigations during the last 10 years using modern palaeontological techniques. However, many of these modern investigations build upon a literature that incorrectly interprets the palaeoenvironment of the Mazon Creek and the separate biotas: there is a lack of evidence to support a distinct freshwater fauna. Here, we present a detailed overview of the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte, including the palaeoenvironmental conditions, organisms present and the complex taphonomic processes involved in fossil formation. Investigation into the formation of siderite concretions and the complex taphonomic processes controlling soft-bodied preservation are still continuing but are reviewed in detail.

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The Okmulgee, Oklahoma fossil flora, a Mazon Creek equivalent: Spatial conservatism in the composition of Middle Pennsylvanian wetland vegetation over 1100km

Cited by 18 publications

References 98 publications

Dynamic Carboniferous tropical forests: new views of plant function and potential for physiological forcing of climate

Dynamic Carboniferous tropical forests: new views of plant function and potential for physiological forcing of climate

Wetland-Dryland Vegetational Dynamics in the Pennsylvanian Ice Age Tropics

The Mazon Creek Lagerstätte: a diverse late Paleozoic ecosystem entombed within siderite concretions

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