BACKGROUND AND AIMS The evolution of complex rooting systems during the Devonian had significant impacts on global terrestrial ecosystems and the evolution of plant body plans. However, detailed understanding of the pathways of root evolution and the architecture of early rooting systems is currently lacking. We describe the architecture and resolve the structural homology of the rooting system...

Premise of research. During the ongoing investigation of Upper Triassic–Lower Cretaceous plant macrofossils from Svalbard, Norway, some ginkgoalean leaf fossils were found from Carnian and Aptian deposits of Spitsbergen and Edgeøya that represent new ginkgophyte species. One new species is described asBaiera aquilonia sp. nov., and one ginkgophyte leaf is assigned to Ginkgoites sp. Along with t...

The core of plant physiology is a set of functional solutions to a tradeoff between CO(2) acquisition and water loss. To provide an important evolutionary perspective on how the earliest land plants met this tradeoff, we constructed a mathematical model (constrained geometrically with measurements of fossils) of the hydraulic resistance of Asteroxylon, an Early Devonian plant. The model results...

The morphology of plant fossils from the Rhynie chert has generated longstanding questions about vascular plant shoot and leaf evolution, for instance, which morphologies were ancestral within land plants, when did vascular plants first arise and did leaves have multiple evolutionary origins? Recent advances combining insights from molecular phylogeny, palaeobotany and evo-devo research address...

Mid-Mesozoic kalligrammatid lacewings (Neuroptera) entered the fossil record 165 million years ago (Ma) and disappeared 45 Ma later. Extant papilionoid butterflies (Lepidoptera) probably originated 80-70 Ma, long after kalligrammatids became extinct. Although poor preservation of kalligrammatid fossils previously prevented their detailed morphological and ecological characterization, we examine...

in Antarctic fossil forests: evolutionary and palaeoclimatic significance" (2007). Related Publications from ANDRILL Affiliates. Paper 4. Summary Many collections of Eocene Fossil leaves from Antarctica contain a rich store of insect trace fossils, indicating that insects were an important component of the unique forests that grew in polar regions. However, insect body fossils themselves are ra...

Plant-derived terpenoids, long recognized as biomarkers, can help reveal the major taxonomic groups of land plants present in ancient environments, even if rocks and sediments do not preserve plant macroor microfossils. Previous studies have used simple dito triterpenoid ratios to reconstruct floral changes in the geologic past, but few have compared terpenoid ratios with estimates of floral co...