A Thelypteridaceous Fern from the Early Paleocene Raton Formation, South-central Colorado, and Its Importance in Interpreting the Climate of the Region

Berry, Keith

doi:10.31582/rmag.mg.57.1.5

Cited by 4 publications

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“…However, S. ungeri foliage was later found associated with Sabal bracknellense (Chandler) Mai fruits (Manchester et al, 2010). My investigations in the Lower Paleocene strata of the Raton Formation suggest that P. palmarum fruits are also commonly associated with Sabalites tenuirachis (Lesquereux) Read et Hickey foliage as well as that of S. ungeri (Berry, 2018b(Berry, , 2020. According to Lee and Knowlton (1917) and Ash and Tidwell (1976), the fruits of P. palmarum have been collected from Upper Maastrichtian strata (Vermejo and basal Raton formations) in the Raton Basin and are commonly associated with Sabalites foliage.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…2). Because some plant groups predicted to be among the hardest hit by the K/Pg impact event, such as Laurales (Wolfe, 1997), are known to have diversified shortly after the K/Pg event in both North America and South America (Northern and Southern Hemispheres) (Berry, 2019a(Berry, , 2020Stiles et al, 2020), these statistical analyses do not include species recognized from the early Paleocene recolonization flora unless these are known to have survived the impact event.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seed traits linked to differential survival of plants during the Cretaceous/Paleogene impact winter

Berry¹

2020

Acta Palaeobotanica

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In past investigations the pattern of differential survival of plants across the K/Pg boundary has been viewed as incompatible with severe asteroid impact winter scenarios (i.e., an impact winter lasting more than a few months), particularly the enigmatic survival of coryphoid palms and Pandanus (screw pine). Stateof- the-art climate models based on soot, sulfate and nano-sized dust aerosols predict a global impact winter that drastically reduced precipitation and resulted in a transient period of total darkness and permafrost conditions. This suggests that the plants most likely to have been affected by the global mass-extinction event were tropical phanerophytes that produce recalcitrant seeds, which by definition are desiccation-intolerant, survive less than a year, and cannot survive freezing. However, this hypothesis has never been tested. In this study I sampled over 100 plant species from the global fossil record that have a high probability of having produced either recalcitrant seeds/disseminules (n1 = 58) or orthodox seeds (n2 = 59), based on their phylogenetic relationships with extant taxa that either are monomorphic for these traits or specifically exhibit a genetic marker for abscisic acid inhibition associated with seed dormancy and recalcitrance. A one-tailed z-test for the difference between two proportions revealed that plant taxa with a high probability of having produced recalcitrant seeds had significantly lower survivorship than plant taxa with a high probability of having produced orthodox seeds (p < 0.0001). Based on these data, it can be concluded that plants which formed a frost-tolerant seed bank during the latest Maastrichtian were significantly more likely to survive the K/Pg impact winter than plants which did not (including palms). These data clearly indicate that the K/Pg impact winter probably lasted longer than a year and that it selected for seed-based traits that effectively sorted correlated functional traits of mature plants (i.e., leaf physiognomic features). This novel hypothesis stands as an alternative to J.A. Wolfe’s classic hypothesis that a mild K/Pg impact winter selected for fast-growing angiosperms with deciduous leaves and did not affect the plant communities of the Southern Hemisphere. Potential mechanisms for the rare survival of tropical, recalcitrant-seeded plants are discussed.

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