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).

L. Grauvogel-Stamm and S.R. Ash (2005): Recovery of the Triassic land flora from the end-Permian life crisis. In PDF, Comptes Rendus Palevol, 4: 593-608. See here as well.
"... Our analysis of the Triassic floras of Europe shows that their recovery began, as in North China, with the proliferation of the lycopsid Pleuromeia during the Early Triassic and that it proceeded with the resurgence of the conifers in the early Middle Triassic (Early Anisian), the return of the cycadophytes and the pteridosperms in the Late Anisian and the progressive evolutionary modernization of the subsequent
[...] The fact that Pleuromeia was the most distinctive feature of the Early Triassic all over Eurasia and in the southern continents suggests that this lycopsid was an opportunistic pioneer plant ..."

X.-H. Huang et al. (2025): Spatial distribution patterns and formation of global spermatophytes. Open access, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 67: 2668-2685. https://doi.org/10.1111/jipb.13923. See here as well (in PDF).
"... we constructed a Spermatophyte Spatial Evolutionary System (SSES) that classifies global spermatophytes into 18 distribution types and six distribution supertypes within three primary floristic elements: cosmopolitan, tropical, and temperate
[...] Our results provide novel insights into the spatial evolution of global spermatophytes and highlight that similar distribution patterns of spermatophytes were driven by their comparable formation processes and mechanisms at the levels of floristic element, distribution supertype, and type ..."

L. Zheng et al. (2025): Application of 3D digital technologies in paleontological reconstruction: a systematic literature review. Free access, Cogent Social Sciences, 11. DOI: 10.1080/23311886.2025.2495188.
"... This study presents a systematic literature review on the application of three-dimensional digital technologies in paleontological reconstruction
[...] These articles specifically address the use of three-dimensional digital technologies in paleontological reconstruction and research, and despite promising developments, this review acknowledges the challenges and limitations associated with digital restoration ..."

H. O'Rourke et al. (2026): Taphonomic Completeness: A new metric for assessing fossil leaf preservation using the Spitsbergen Cenozoic fossil flora. Free access, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 344.
"... The leaf traits visible in the Spitsbergen Cenozoic fossil flora were studied to analyse the effect of leaf traits on preservation potential
[...] this study highlights the differing preservation quality of leaves in the fossil record based on life form through the application of a new �Taphonomic Completeness� metric ..."

! B. Palmer et al. (2025): Microbial taphonomy of Ginkgo leaves in fine-grained substrates: how sediment type facilitates preservation. Open access, Palaeontology, 68.
"... we investigate the microbial community composition of biofilms on floating and buried leaves of living Ginkgo
leaf biofilms forming in fine-grained sediments with low organic content, such as clay, foster anaerobic environments which could lead to incorporating minerals that enhance biomineralization on leaf surfaces ..."

J. Chen et al. (2025): Regional postdeforestation weathering feedback drove diachronous C�S cycle perturbations during the end-Permian crisis. In PDF, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2504841122. See likewise here.
Note figure 3: Spatial-temporal correlation of the ¹³C_org and d³⁴S_py records from the paleotropical Southwest China, the paleo-high-latitude Sydney Basin, and the marine Meishan section (A), and the hypothesized evolution of the deterioration of the terrestrial processes over the three distinct phases of the P-Tr transition in Southwest China (B).
"... Latitudinal Diachroneity in Terrestrial Ecosystem Collapse During the End-Permian Mass Extinction
[...] The temporal relationship between marine and terrestrial extinctions during the end-Permian mass extinction remains a subject of debate, despite hypothesized global synchronous collapse of marine and terrestrial ecosystems ..."

! M. Laaß and R. Rößler (2025): Den Urinsekten auf der Spur: Eiablage und andere Fortpflanzungsstrategien im Fossilbericht � Aussagen über vergangene kontinentale Ökosysteme. PDF file, in German. Veröffentlichungen Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz, 48: 27�106.
Note figure 3: Life cycles in insects.
!Figure 30: Reconstruction of the egg-laying process of Megaovoidus foveolatus on a Calamites trunk.
"... The aim of this paper is to present the most important reproduction and egg-laying strategies of recent insects and to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge regarding their origin and occurrence in the fossil record. The focus is on the earliest egg deposits from the late Paleozoic ..."

J. Carrión et al. (2026): Beyond the cold steppes: Neanderthal landscapes and the neglect of flora. Free access, Quaternary Science Reviews, 371.
"... this work seeks to challenge the entrenched popular view that Neanderthals must be associated exclusively with treeless, open glacial landscapes, instead highlighting the diversity of vegetated environments in which they lived ..."

! Y. He et al. 2024): Opportunities and Challenges in Applying AI to Evolutionary Morphology Open access, Integrative Organismal Biology, 6. https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obae036.
"... We introduce the main available AI techniques, categorizing them into 3 stages based on their order of appearance: (1) machine learning, (2) deep learning, and (3) the most recent advancements in large-scale models and multimodal learning. Next, we present case studies of existing approaches using AI for evolutionary morphology ..."

PICRYL (developed by GetArchive):
PICRYL is the largest media source for public domain images, scans, and documents. Go to:
! Paleobotany .

! J. Carrión et al. (2025): Plants in the shadows: Bridging the gap in paleoecology and paleoart. Free access, Earth-Science Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2025.105371.
"... we evaluate methodological frameworks for translating fragmentary data into coherent visual ecosystems
[...] Particular attention is given to recent botanical paleoart
[...] we present original reconstructions from the Iberian Peninsula ..."

Earth-Science Reviews (Elsevier).
Earth-Science Reviews publishes review articles dealing with all aspects of the Earth Sciences.

S. Maidment and R.J. Butler (2025): New frontiers in dinosaur exploration. Open access, Biol. Lett., 21: 20250045.
"... The potential for new dinosaur discoveries in India and Africa seems particularly high, while the Carnian, when dinosaurs probably originated, and the Middle Jurassic, when the major clades diversified, offer the best opportunities to make discoveries that will fundamentally change our understanding of dinosaur evolution ..."

M.C. Langer et al. (2009): The origin and early evolution of dinosaurs. In PDF, Biological Reviews, 84: 1-56. See here as well.
Note figure 11: Reconstruction of two dinosaur-bearing fossil assemblages of the South American Late Triassic.
"... The oldest unequivocal records of Dinosauria were unearthed from Late Triassic rocks (approximately 230 Ma) accumulated over extensional rift basins in southwestern Pangea
[...] dinosaurs did not gradually replace other terrestrial tetrapods over the Late Triassic. In fact, the radiation of the group comprises at least three landmark moments, separated by controversial (Carnian-Norian, Triassic-Jurassic) extinction events. These are mainly characterized by early diversification in Carnian times
[...] the oldest dinosaurs were geographically restricted to south Pangea, including rare ornithischians and more abundant basal members of the saurischian lineage, the group achieved a nearly global distribution by the latest Triassic ..."

K. El Mahboubi and F. Romani (2025): Non-seed plant research in the spotlight. Free access, Biology Open, 14.
Note figure 1: Model systems and available resources in non-seed plants.
"... researchers embracing the diversity of plants and using emerging and established model systems covering hornworts, mosses, liverworts, lycophytes and ferns
[...] developments reflect a broader shift in plant biology, where diverse model systems are essential for reconstructing the evolutionary history of plants ..."

C. Cleal (2025): Diversity of small-leafed equisetaleans in Late Carboniferous coal swamps of Euramerica. Free access, Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India. https://doi.org/10.1177/05529360251400.
"... A group of equisetalean shoots with distinctive small leaves occurs widely in the upper Bashkirian and lower Moscovian coal-bearing deposits of Euramerica. They have often been named Asterophyllites grandis and Asterophyllites charaeformis in the past, but the use of these names is illegitimate for these species. In this study, these shoots have been assigned to five fossil species: Asterophyllites delicatulus, Asterophyllites parvulus, Asterophyllites gracilis, Asterophyllites taylorianum, and Asterophyllites lubnensis ..."

! B. van de Schootbrugge et al. (2025): Continental-scale wildfires during end-Triassic greenhouse warming. In PDF. Paper published on a website (Scientific congresses, symposiums and conference proceedings). EGU General Assembly 2025. See here as well.
Note figure 1: Late Triassic paleogeography.
! Figure 3: Latest Triassic palynomorph Dark Zone in NW Europe.
"... the emission of an estimated 100,000 Gt of CO₂ during pulsed eruptions in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province had dire consequences for the biosphere and resulted in the end-Triassic extinction
[...] we investigate this latest Triassic �dark zone�, using the Palynomorph Darkening Index (PDI) obtained from trilete fern spores
[...] The impact of continental-scale wildfires during the height of the end-Triassic mass-extinction suggests intense climate change exerting heat stress on vegetation as a major factor in the collapse of terrestrial ecosystems ..."

! W.A. DiMichele et al. (2025): Climate, not transport from �uplands� or �extrabasinal lowlands,� is the cause of drought-tolerant terrestrial organisms in the late Paleozoic fossil record. Abstract, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 676.
"... A long-standing interpretation of the Pennsylvanian �Coal Age� tropical landscape partitions it along an elevational gradient, with wetland, drought-intolerant plants and animals occupying lowland, basinal settings, and increasingly drought-tolerant plants and animals colonizing progressively more remote areas, termed �extrabasinal lowlands� and �uplands�
[...] Xeromorphic plants, terrestrialized animals in basinal lowlands reflect climate change not transport from extrabasinal areas
[...] we reexamine here the basis for rejecting the �upland� trope as an explanation for unusual, rarely encountered Late Paleozoic plant and animal fossils or for patterns in their time-space distribution ..."