Article
Ecology
Daniele Silvestro, Christine D. Bacon, Wenna Ding, Qiuyue Zhang, Philip C. J. Donoghue, Alexandre Antonelli, Yaowu Xing
Summary: The origin of angiosperms remains controversial, with some families originating in the Jurassic and supporting rapid diversification in the Cretaceous, as indicated by both molecular and fossil record analyses.
NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Hani Boukhamsin, Daniel Peyrot, Marco Vecoli, Victorien Paumard, Simon Lang
Summary: The Early Cretaceous represents a significant period of angiosperm radiation, particularly in the Arabian Plate. The diverse angiosperm flora coexisted with other plant groups in northeastern Gondwana and dispersed through both land bridges and over-sea dispersal to different environments.
EARTH-SCIENCE REVIEWS
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Angelino Carta, Marcial Escudero
Summary: This study used a global dataset of over 413,000 measured chromosome counts in plants to investigate the association between karyotypic diversity and species diversification in angiosperms. The results showed that karyotypic diversity explained species richness and diversification rates, suggesting that chromosome evolution plays an important role in speciation.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Nare Ngoepe, Moritz Muschick, Mary A. Kishe, Salome Mwaiko, Yunuen Temoltzin-Loranca, Leighton King, Colin Courtney Mustaphi, Oliver Heiri, Giulia Wienhues, Hendrik Vogel, Maria Cuenca-Cambronero, Willy Tinner, Martin Grosjean, Blake Matthews, Ole Seehausen
Summary: This study presents a continuous fossil record showing how haplochromine cichlids came to dominate the fish fauna of Lake Victoria in Africa.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Nare Ngoepe, Moritz Muschick, Mary A. Kishe, Salome Mwaiko, Yunuen Temoltzin-Loranca, Leighton King, Colin Courtney Mustaphi, Oliver Heiri, Giulia Wienhues, Hendrik Vogel, Maria Cuenca-Cambronero, Willy Tinner, Martin Grosjean, Blake Matthews, Ole Seehausen
Summary: Adaptive radiations play a crucial role in generating biodiversity, but the relative importance of species' ecological versatility and arrival order in determining which lineage radiates is still unclear. Through analyzing the fossil record of cichlid fishes in Lake Victoria, it was found that their ecological versatility was key to their persistence in new habitats, suggesting that it played a major role in adaptive radiation.
Review
Plant Sciences
Michael J. Benton, Peter Wilf, Herve Sauquet
Summary: The explosive growth of terrestrial biodiversity occurred from 100 to 50 million years ago, closely related to innovations in flowering plant biology and evolutionary ecology. The rise of angiosperms triggered a macroecological revolution on land, driving modern biodiversity to new, high levels of long-term transition.
Article
Geology
Clement Coiffard, Dieter Uhl, Saleh S. Aba Alkhayl, Haytham El Atfy
Summary: A new florula dominated by angiosperm leaves in the Upper Cretaceous Malihah Formation of Saudi Arabia is described, filling a regional gap in knowledge about Cretaceous floras from the Arabian Peninsula and its surroundings. The leaves are fragmentarily preserved as impressions with a rust-colored mineral coating, and the flora exhibits more similarities to Aptian-Cenomanian floras than to Turonian floras from northern Gondwana.
CRETACEOUS RESEARCH
(2021)
Review
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Roger B. J. Benson, Richard Butler, Roger A. Close, Erin Saupe, Daniel L. Rabosky
Summary: The fossil record is the primary source of information on biodiversity over time, but interpretations of diversity patterns are debated due to spatial and temporal patchiness. Focusing on global diversity alone cannot untangle the signals of ecological drivers at different scales, necessitating a shift towards spatially explicit investigations. Research has shown stability in species richness variation among environments and potential climatic drivers of biodiversity change.
Article
Plant Sciences
Erik Tihelka, Liqin Li, Yanzhe Fu, Yitong Su, Diying Huang, Chenyang Cai
Summary: An exceptionally preserved short-winged flower beetle fossil provides evidence of pollen-feeding activities in a Cretaceous beetle, confirming diverse beetle lineages visited early angiosperms. The identification of Tricolpopollenites pollen grains suggests potentially diverse beetle lineages visited early angiosperms by the mid-Cretaceous. This fossil offers some of the earliest clues to the origins of angiosperm pollination.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Hong Wu, Mingli Hu, Ming Yang
Summary: Comparing cellular features in microsporogenesis across taxa may provide insights into the evolution of meiosis in plants. It has been observed that bidirectional cytokinesis occurs in basal angiosperm species, but not in eudicots and monocots, suggesting it is a common feature in some basal angiosperms.
PLANT SIGNALING & BEHAVIOR
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Juan Benito, Pei-Chen Kuo, Klara E. Widrig, John W. M. Jagt, Daniel J. Field
Summary: The bony palate helps distinguish between the two deepest clades of extant birds: Neognathae and Palaeognathae. The discovery of the new Late Cretaceous ornithurine Janavis finalidens provides evidence supporting the presence of an anatomically neognathous palate in some Mesozoic non-crown ornithurines, suggesting that pterygoids similar to those of extant Galloanserae may be ancestral for crown birds. This challenges previous assumptions about the ancestral palate of crown birds and calls for a reevaluation of the purported galloanseran affinities of early Cenozoic groups.
Article
Geology
Steven M. Holland, Katharine M. Loughney, Marjean Cone
Summary: Modern coastal sedimentary basins tend to be at lower elevations, while inland basins can reach higher elevations. Both types of basins generally preserve a narrow range of elevations, with coastal basins typically around 200-300 m. This selective preservation of low-elevation habitats suggests that much of ancient nonmarine biodiversity may not be preserved. Given the occurrence of modern biodiversity hotspots at high elevations, long ghost lineages and underestimated divergence times are likely common in the nonmarine fossil record.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Andrew B. Leslie, Carl Simpson, Luke Mander
Summary: This study examines the evolution of reproductive complexity in vascular plants over a 250 million year period, finding two pulses of increased complexity, one in the Devonian period and another in the Late Cretaceous period. These increases were associated with innovations that enhanced functional diversity, suggesting a link between complexity and function in vascular plant evolution.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Emily M. Carlisle, Melina Jobbins, Vanisa Pankhania, John A. Cunningham, Philip C. J. Donoghue
Summary: Experimental research on the decay of organelles in red and green algae suggests that chloroplasts are more resistant to decay than nuclei, while pyrenoids are unlikely to be preserved. This indicates potential differential organelle preservation in seed plants and prompts a reevaluation of the early eukaryotic fossil record.
Article
Biology
Xin Wang, Jose B. Diez, Mike Pole, Manuel Garcia-Avila
Summary: Although diverse fossil angiosperms have been reported from the Early Cretaceous, their documentation is limited due to poor preservation and limited technologies. In this study, we applied paraffin sectioning and microscopy techniques to document a new fossil reproductive organ, Xilinia gen. nov., from Inner Mongolia, China. The morphological characteristics of Xilinia indicate a transitional stage in plant evolution that is not present in extant plants.
