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).

J.A. Smith (2025): Identifying the Big Questions in paleontology: a community-driven project. In PDF, Paleobiology. https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042.
"... In an effort to identify �Big Questions� in paleontology, experts from around the world came together to build a list of priority questions the field can address in the years ahead. The 89 questions presented herein (grouped within 11 themes) represent contributions from nearly 200 international scientists ..."

Richard Hill, Lunar and Planetary Lab, University of Arizona (published by the Mid-America Paleontology Soc. in the Expo proceedings for 1999):
Making Thin Sections by Hand.
A method of manually making thin sections is presented. Simple techniques for maintaining parallelism that avoids direct measurement is described in detail and a number of examples are shown.
Retrieved from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

! T. Zhao et al. (2024): Artificial intelligence for geoscience: Progress, challenges, and perspectives. Open access, The Innovation, 5.
"... This paper explores the evolution of geoscientific inquiry, tracing the progression from traditional physics-based models to modern data-driven approaches facilitated by significant advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and data collection techniques
[...] The synergy between traditional principles and modern AI-driven techniques holds immense promise ..."

The British Pteridiological Society.
The British Pteridological Society provides a wide range of information about ferns for fern enthusiasts. It also organises formal talks, informal discussions, field meetings, garden visits, plant exchanges, a spore exchange scheme and fern book sales. Go to:
An Introduction to Ferns.
This introduction (to ferns and other pteridophytes) is based on a chapter from the book "A World of Ferns", by Josephine M. Camus, A. Clive Jermy & Barry A. Thomas, Natural History Museum Publications, London.
Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Indiana Geological and Water Survey, Bloomington, IN:
Atlas of Coal Macerals.
This Atlas of Coal Macerals presents the current classifications of the International Committee for Coal and Organic Petrology (ICCP) together with examples of coal macerals. Photomicrographs of macerals were taken on polished sections under a reflected light microscope (with oil objective) in white or fluorescent light. Excellent!
Retrieved from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

W. Steffen et al, (2020): The emergence and evolution of Earth System Science. In PDF, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 1: 54�63.
See also here.
"... ESS [Earth System Science] has produced new concepts and frameworks central to the global-change discourse, including the Anthropocene, tipping elements and planetary boundaries. Moving forward, the grand challenge for ESS is to achieve a deep integration of biophysical processes and human dynamics to build a truly unified understanding of the Earth System ..."
Retrieved from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

! G.E. Mustoe et al. (2025): Mineralogy of Petrified Wood from Costa Rica. Open access, Minerals, 15. https://doi.org/10.3390/min15050497.
"... Our investigation is a preliminary study of the mineralization mechanisms and the degree of anatomical preservation
[...] Our research involved the study of 54 specimens, with the goal of determining their mineral compositions and interpreting the fossilization processes. Data came from thin-section optical microscopy, SEM images, and X-ray diffraction ..."

Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley:
The Cleared Leaf Collection. An image gallery of modern leaves that have been bleached and stained to make their venation patterns more visible. Leaf shape, venation, and features of the margin, base and apex constitute important taxonomic and physiognomic characters.
Retrieved from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
See also here.

! J.G. Pausas et al. (2025): The role of fire on Earth. Open access, BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf132.
! Note Table 1: Examples of nonlinear dynamics and feedback loops involving fire at different scales.
"... Fire and the biosphere are mutually dependent and deeply intertwined, sometimes in a complex manner
[...] Fire has also shaped the structure of many ecosystems and the distribution of biomes, and it is an important contributor to the global biogeochemical cycles ..."

BioScience (by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences).
A peer-reviewed monthly journal with content written and edited for accessibility to researchers, educators, and students alike.

Arlington Central School District, LaGrangeville, NY.:
Plant Anatomy and Physiology. Lecture notes, Powerpoint presentation.
Retrieved from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

W.J. Foster et al. (2025): An unpredictable body size response to the Permo�Triassic climate crisis.In PDF, EGUsphere.
Note figure 1: Palaeogeographic setting of the Dolomites, Italy.
"Shallow marine bivalve communities from the Dolomites in Italy show a significant reduction in body-size at the genus-level, but conversely at the species-level body sizes stay the same or slightly increase, inconsistent with the Lilliput effect hypothesis
[...] The impact of the mass extinction event on biotic interactions also likely played a major role in the preferential origination of small-sized species ..."

M. Havelcova et al. (2025): Structural analysis of fossilized tree trunks from the Miocene Mydlovary Formation of the South Bohemian Basin (Czech Republic). In PDF, Palaeoworld, 34. See likewise here.
"... Our study presents microscopic and chemical tissue analyses of these tree trunks. The trees were fossilized and flattened. However, they are well preserved
[...] The biomarker composition in the extracts of the fossil wood obtained by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, included terpenoid signatures, supporting a relationship to the Family Cupressaceae s.s. ..."

! The Micropalaeontological Society (TMS).
TMS exists to advance the education of the public in the study of Micropalaeontology and is operated �exclusively for scientific and educational purposes and not for profit. Worth checking out:
The wikipedia entry.
Visit the ! Palynology Group.

T. Reichgelt et al. (2025): Insights into greener Miocene biomes and globally enhanced terrestrial productivity from fossil leaves. Open access, Evolving Earth 3.
"... we analyzed 108 Miocene megafloras using a single standardized leaf-based paleoclimate proxy to produce climate, pro ductivity and biome reconstructions and compare these to modern. Miocene temperature, precipitation, and productivity
[...] leaf megafloras reveal an overall greener Miocene world that appears to be largely driven by greater moisture availability.

H. Poorter et al. (2025): Stomatal Density and Index Are More Responsive to Light Intensity than to [CO₂]: A Meta-Analysis and Implications for Paleo-CO₂ Reconstruction. Open access, Plant Ecophysiology, 1. See likewise here.
"... We conducted a meta-analysis of a wide range of experiments in which plants were grown under different levels of CO₂, light, temperature, and water availability
[...] the effect of growth light intensity was positive, highly consistent, and substantially stronger than the impact of atmospheric CO₂. Temperature also positively influenced stomatal density, while water availability showed no consistent effects. Based on these dose-response curves, we highlight several caveats when using stomatal density or stomatal index for paleo-CO₂ reconstruction. The weak CO₂ response, coupled with the strong confounding impact of light intensity, poses significant limitations to the accuracy of such estimates ..."

! M. Laaß et al. (2025): Host-specific leaf-mining behaviour of holometabolous insect larvae in the early Permian. Open access, Scientific reports, 15. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-15413-x. See here as well.
Note figure 5: Co-occurrence of endophytic oviposition and Asteronomus maeandriformis in Autunia conferta.
"... We re-examined the controversial feeding trace of Asteronomus maeandriformis
[...] Our results unequivocally show that endophytic feeding behaviour evolved in the holometabolan clade at least by the earliest Permian and, therefore, more than 40 Ma earlier than hypothesised. The findings reveal complex organism interactions in late Palaeozoic ecosystems ..."

! C.C. Loron et al. (2025): Prototaxites was an extinct lineage of multicellular terrestrial eukaryotes bioRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.14.643340.
"... We report that Prototaxites taiti was the largest organism in the Rhynie ecosystem and its anatomy was fundamentally distinct from all known extant or extinct fungi. Furthermore, our molecular composition analysis indicates that cell walls of P. taiti include aliphatic, aromatic, and phenolic components most similar to fossilisation products of lignin, but no fossilisation products characteristic of chitin or chitosan, which are diagnostic of all groups of extant and extinct fungi
[...] Prototaxites was not a fungus ..."