Latitudinal Patterns in Plant Evolution

Basic data for this project

Description

Latitudinal patterns in biodiversity have fascinated some of the most celebrated minds of ecology and evolutionary theory. With increasing evidence from the fossil record, even greater-scale latitudinal patterns have begun to emerge in relation to the origination, diversification, and extinction of evolutionary lineages through geologic time. The fossil record highlights low-latitude regions as nurseries for the radiation of key plant evolutionary lineages and architectural novelties. For example, past studies have identified the palaeoequatorial regions as hosting the earliest occurrences of flowering plants. By contrast, during times of global warmth, high-latitude regions appear to act as refugia for groups that have long disappeared from lower latitudes. These regions furthermore appear to act as important sources of biodiversity for re-radiation in the wake of biotic crises. The Triassic greenhouse period is a particularly interesting interval in this respect, as it is bounded by two of the most severe mass extinction events of Earth history and is characterized by an unprecedented radiation of seed plants. This project aims to utilize the exceptional early Mesozoic plant-fossil record of Gondwana, analysed using a battery of novel techniques, to resolve the latitudinal patterns of plant-group origination and extinction and their implications for plant evolution during the heyday of the gymnosperms.