Back to the Beginnings: The Silurian-Devonian as a Time of Major Innovation in Plants and Their Communities

Gensel, Patricia G.; Glasspool, Ian J.; Gastaldo, Robert A.; Libertı́n, Milan; Kvaček, Jiřı́

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35058-1_15

Cited by 15 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 106 publications

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“…Ferns (in the broad sense) are a heterogeneous assemblage of ancient lineages-including horsetails (Equisetidae), marratioid ferns (Marattiidae), whisk and ophioglossid ferns (Ophioglossidae), and leptosporangiate ferns (Polypodiidae)that trace back to the Devonian radiation of vascular plants circa 393 to 359 Ma (e.g., refs. 16,46). Prior to phylogenetic analyses including molecular data (e.g., ref.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenomic conflict coincides with rapid morphological innovation

Parins‐Fukuchi

Stull

Smith

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated with the episodes of rapid phenotypic innovation that underlie the emergence of major lineages. Although our understanding of the environmental and ecological contexts of such episodes has steadily increased, it has remained unclear how population processes contribute to emergent macroevolutionary patterns. One insight gleaned from phylogenomics is that gene-tree conflict, frequently caused by population-level processes, is often rampant during the origin of major lineages. With the understanding that phylogenomic conflict is often driven by complex population processes, we hypothesized that there may be a direct correspondence between instances of high conflict and elevated rates of phenotypic innovation if both patterns result from the same processes. We evaluated this hypothesis in six clades spanning vertebrates and plants. We found that the most conflict-rich regions of these six clades also tended to experience the highest rates of phenotypic innovation, suggesting that population processes shaping both phenotypic and genomic evolution may leave signatures at deep timescales. Closer examination of the biological significance of phylogenomic conflict may yield improved connections between micro- and macroevolution and increase our understanding of the processes that shape the origin of major lineages across the Tree of Life.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenomic conflict coincides with rapid morphological innovation

Parins‐Fukuchi

Stull

Smith

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The monilophytes are a heterogeneous assemblage of ancient lineages—including horsetails (Equisetiidae), marratioid ferns (Marattiidae), whisk and ophioglossid ferns (Ophioglossidae), and leptosporangiate ferns (Polypodiidae)—that trace back to the Devonian radiation of vascular plants ca. 393 to 359 Ma (e.g., Kenrick and Crane 1997; Gensel et al 2020). Prior to phylogenetic analyses including molecular data (e.g., Pyrer et al 2001), the lineages comprising the monilophytes were not thought to form a clade, but analyses have continued to recover this relationship with strong support (Pryer et al 2001; Wickett et al 2014; Leebens-Mack et al 2019).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several large-scale studies using massive genomic datasets have revealed extensive conflict among phylogenetic branches coinciding with the early radiation of crown Aves (Jarvis et al 2014;Prum et al 2015). Since the origin of land plants, there have been numerous major phases of morphological and ecological innovation, including the initial radiation of vascular plant body plans in the late Silurian (Kenrick and Crane 1997); the origination of major lycophyte and euphyllophyte structures (e.g., roots, megaphyllous leaves, seeds, wood) by the late Devonian or earlier (Gensel et al 2020); radiations of ferns, seed ferns, and lycophytes with diverse life histories during the Carboniferous (Stewart and Rothwell 1993); radiations of various gymnosperm lineages in the Permian and different parts of the Mesozoic (Beck 1988); and distinct phases of angiosperm radiation from the Cretaceous to the present (Friis et al 2011). As with the vertebrate lineages, the origins of many major plant clades show elevated levels of phylogenomic conflict.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenomic conflict coincides with rapid morphological innovation

Parins‐Fukuchi

Stull

Smith

2020

Preprint

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Evolutionary biologists have long recognized that rates of phenotypic change vary widely throughout time and across lineages. Researchers have been particularly fascinated with evolutionary 'radiations'--periods during which novel phenotypic characteristics and new species emerge at an unusually high rate. Despite considerable speculation and empirical testing of the geologic, environmental, and ecological contexts coinciding with the radiations of major lineages, our understanding of how population processes during these epochs contribute to emergent macroevolutionary patterns in phenotypic change remains poor. However, the increasing prevalence of phylogenomic datasets over the past decade has revealed that phylogenomic conflict, frequently caused by population-level processes, is often highest at the origin of major lineages. We reconstruct patterns in both rates of morphological change and levels of phylogenomic conflict across six clades to identify whether the large spikes in the rate of phenotypic change that accompany major radiations coincide with elevated conflict. We found that the most conflict-rich regions of the six clades also tended to experience the highest rates of morphological evolution, suggesting that the complex population processes that underlie evolutionary radiations leave signatures at deep phylogenetic scales in both genomic and phenotypic data. Thus, closer examination of the drivers and implications of phylogenomic conflict may permit us to make improved connections between micro- and macroevolution, vastly increasing our understanding of the processes that shape the origin of major lineages across the Tree of Life.

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“…Fire is not precluded at pO 2 <18% but, given the diminutive and hydrophilic nature of the Silurian fuel, it is highly unlikely. Early Homerian charcoal from Rumney and from the Gorstian of Nant Cwm-Ddu, Wales (under preliminary investigation; see the Supplemental Material), representing a time when Baragwanathia was an embryophytic "giant" (Gensel et al, 2020), is more incongruent with pO 2 predictions for this earlier interval, which fall at or below 15% (Lenton et al, 2018;Krause et al, 2019;cf. Belcher et al, 2010, their figures 2 and 4).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Silurian wildfire proxies and atmospheric oxygen

Glasspool

Gastaldo

2022

Geology

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The earliest evidence of wildfire is documented from two localities: the early mid-Silurian Pen-y-lan Mudstone, Rumney, Wales (UK), and the late Silurian Winnica Formation, Winnica, Poland. Nematophytes dominate both charcoal assemblages. Reflectance data indicate low-temperature fires with localized intense conditions. Fire temperatures are greater in the older and less evolved assemblage. These charcoal assemblages and others, new and previously documented, from the Silurian and earliest Devonian are compared to box models of atmospheric oxygen concentration (pO2). Based on modern charring experiments, these data indicate pO2 is divergent from the broad trends predicted by the COPSE-revisited and GEOCARBSULFOR models. Sustained burns require a minimum pO2 threshold of 16%, or ~0.75 present atmospheric level. This threshold was first met and, our charcoal data indicate, was exceeded in the mid-Silurian and then, later in the Silurian, attained again repeatedly.

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Back to the Beginnings: The Silurian-Devonian as a Time of Major Innovation in Plants and Their Communities

Cited by 15 publications

References 106 publications

Phylogenomic conflict coincides with rapid morphological innovation

Phylogenomic conflict coincides with rapid morphological innovation

Phylogenomic conflict coincides with rapid morphological innovation

Silurian wildfire proxies and atmospheric oxygen

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