Links for Palaeobotanists 1

An annotated collection of pointers to information on palaeobotany
or to WWW resources which may be of use to palaeobotanists (with an Upper Triassic bias).

E.M. Bordy et al. (2024): Selected Karoo geoheritage sites of palaeontological significance in South Africa and Lesotho. Open access, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 543: 431-446. See likewise here.
Note figure 3c: Palaeo-art mural of a late Permian scene (artwork by Gerhard Marx).
Figure 9f: Reconstruction of the Early Jurassic dinosaur-dominated ecosystem of southern Gondwana.

Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), Harvard Univerity: Introduction to the Sedimentary Processes and Structures of the Trenton Group:
Sedimentary Processes.
Provided by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Michael E. Mann, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia: Insights into Climate Dynamics from Paleoclimate Data. Powerpoint presentation.
Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

M.J. Benton (2023): Palaeobiology: Rapid succession during mass extinction. Open access, Current Biology, 33.
Note figure 1: The latest Permian Vyatkian fauna from Russia ((artwork: John Sibbick).
Figure 2: Diversity dynamics of tetrapods through the latest Permian and earliest Triassic of the Karoo basin, South Africa.

Geologica Acta .
Geologica Acta is a non-profit general Earth Science Journal providing an innovative and high-quality means of scientific dissemination.

! S. Karacic et al. (2024): Oxygen-dependent biofilm dynamics in leaf decay: an in vitro analysis. Open access, Scientific Reports, 14.
See also here.
"... we used 16S rRNA and ITS gene amplicon sequencing to investigate the composition, temporal dynamics, and community assembly processes of bacterial and fungal biofilms on decaying leaves in vitro
[...] community composition differed significantly between biofilm samples under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, though not among plant species
[...] Oxygen availability and incubation time were found to be primary factors influencing the microbial diversity of biofilms on different decaying plant species in vitro ..."

C.C. Labandeira and R. Cenci (2024): Workshop: Insect-Plant Interaction Notes. In PDF, Conference: Ichnia 2024 - The 5^th International Congress on Ichnology, Florianópolis, Brazil.
! Note figure 1: The functional feeding group�damage type (FFG-DT) system for documenting and analyzing herbivory in the fossil record.

! E.J. Judd et al. (2024): A 485-million-year history of Earth's surface temperature. In PDF, Science, 385.
See here as well.
"... PhanDA [a state-of-the-art reconstruction of GMST spanning the last 485 million years of Earth history] provides a statistically robust estimate of GMST [global mean surface temperature] through the Phanerozoic.
[...] We find that Earth�s temperature has varied more dynamically than previously thought and that greenhouse climates were very warm. CO₂ is the dominant driver of Phanerozoic climate, emphasizing the importance of this greenhouse gas in shaping Earth history
[...] PhanDA exhibits a large range of GMST, spanning 11° to 36°C. ..."

E.J. Edwards et al. (2024): University herbaria are uniquely important. In PDF, Trends in Plant Science, 29.
See here as well.
"... University herbaria play critical roles in biodiversity research and training
[...] Universities have a responsibility to steward these important collections in perpetuity, in alignment with their academic missions and for the good of science and society ..."

J. Lies and R. Rößler (2024): Der Hornstein von Priefel - Ein Fossilvorkommen aus dem Perm bei Altenburg. PDF file, in German. Veröffentlichungen Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz, 47: 15-58.
Note figure 4: Historic reconstruction of the Carboniferous vegetation (by Joseph Kuwassegs, 1850).

N. Zavialova et al. (2024): Permian/Triassic megaspores of Otynisporites (Fuglewicz) Karasev et Turnau, 2015: Diversity, botanical affinity, and stratigraphic significance. Abstract, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 333.
"... A comparison with the composition of palynological assemblages from megaspore-containing deposits implies that parent plants of O. eotriassicus, O. tuberculatus, and O. maculosus more probably produced trilete cavate microspores, Lundbladispora might be a counterpart for O. eotriassicus, whereas parent plants of O.? tarimensis and Otynisporites? sp. more probably produced monolete microspores ..."

S. Minev-Benzecry and B.H. Daru (2024): Climate change alters the future of natural floristic regions of deep evolutionary origins. In PDF, Nature Communications, 15. See here as well.
Note figure 2: Changes in vascular plant biogeographic regions under current and future climate scenarios in geographic space.
"... we model species distributions for 189,269 vascular plant species of the world under present and future climates and use this data to generate biogeographic regions based on phylogenetic dissimilarity
[...] Our findings suggest that human activities may now surpass the geological forces that shaped floristic regions over millions of years, calling for the mitigation of climate impacts ..."

T.P. Hollaar et al. (2024): The optimum fire window: applying the fire�productivity hypothesis to Jurassic climate states. Free access, Biogeosciences, 21: 2795�2809. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-2795-2024.
"... we test the intermediate fire�productivity hypothesis for a period on Earth before the evolution of grasses, the Early Jurassic, and explore the fire regime of two contrasting climatic states: the cooling of the Late Pliensbachian Event (LPE) and the warming of the Sinemurian�Pliensbachian Boundary (SPB) ..."

! J.E. Tierney et al. (2020): Past climates inform our future. In PDF, Science, 370. DOI: 10.1126/science.aay37.
See likewise here.
"... we review the relevancy of paleoclimate information for climate prediction and discuss the prospects for emerging methodologies to further insights gained from past climates
[...] The future of paleoclimatology is to incorporate past climate information formally in model evaluation, so that we can better predict and plan for the impacts of anthropogenic climate change ..."

Geoheritage (established 2009, Springer). This is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of global geoheritage, both in situ and portable.

! L.J. Seyfullah et al. (2024): Detection of in situ resinous traces in Jurassic conifers from floras lacking amber. Free access, Fossil Imprint, 80: 68�76.
See likewise here.
"... We identified [...] resin traces in leaves that were only visible via autofluorescence with UV light. These resinous traces likely define the former position of resin canals in the leaves, but the resin is not preserved as in situ rods. Instead, it has impregnated the coalified mesophyll, likely during fossilization, to form thin lines (chemical �ghosts� of preserved resin) within the conifer leaf remains ..."

! N.K. Dhami et al. (2023): Microbially mediated fossil concretions and their characterization by the latest methodologies: a review. Free access, Front. Microbiol. 14: 1225411. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1225411.
Note figure 1: The three broad modes of fossilization.
Figure 5: Schematic of photic zone euxinia conditions, calcium carbonate concretion formation and in-situ fossilization, demonstrating the complex eogenetic (water column) and diagenetic (sediment/water interface) processes which can be interpreted from molecular biomarkers.
Figure 6: Visual representation of the factors involved in formation of iron carbonate concretions in freshwater influenced environments.
! Figure 7: Flow diagram for analytical methods applicable to microbial fossil concretions, modern and ancient.
! Table 2: Brief summary of the various analytical techniques applicable to concretion analysis, as discussed in this review.
"... we provide a comprehensive account of organic geochemical, and complimentary inorganic geochemical, morphological, microbial and paleontological, analytical methods, including recent advancements, relevant to the characterization of concretions and sequestered OM [organic matter] ..."

A.J. Hetherington (2024): The role of fossils for reconstructing the evolution of plant development. Free access, The Company of Biologists, 151.
Note figure 1: Fossils indicate that roots and leaves evolved independently in vascular plants.
"... The focus of this Spotlight is to showcase the rich plant fossil record open for developmental interpretation and to cement the role that fossils play at a time when increases in genome sequencing and new model species make tackling major questions in the area of plant evolution and development tractable for the first time ..."

R.W. Gess and C. Berry (2024): Archaeopteris trees at high southern latitudes in the late Devonian. Open access, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 331.
"... Archaeopteris, the quintessential Late Devonian woody tree, has previously been identified at this locality on the basis of leafy branch system fragments, though some uncertainty has remained as to whether these represent tree sized organisms. Here we present co-occurring large axes, including a trunk base, attributable to Archaeopteris trees inferred to be in excess of 20 m height, the first demonstration of forest stature at high latitudes in the Devonian ..."