Sphenopsids of the Permian (I): The largest known anatomically preserved calamite, an exceptional find from the petrified forest of Chemnitz, Germany

Rößler, Ronny; Noll, Robert

doi:10.1016/j.revpalbo.2006.03.008

Cited by 45 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…These plants are widely known from stem casts preserved in upright position but also as compressed stems, often in streamside and lakeside habitats (for a large review of literature see DiMichele and Falcon-Lang 2012). They also are well documented from petrified material in coal-swamp settings (Andrews and Agashe 1965; Spatz et al 1998) and clastic wetlands (Rö ßler and Noll 2006;Mencl et al 2013), from which stem sizes are often considerably larger than those known from compression preservation. Most calamitaleans were rhizomatous, the only group of ecologically dominant, large-size wetland plants with this habit, which enabled them to persist through or recover from repeated inundation by flood-borne sediments (Gastaldo 1992;DiMichele et al 2009b).…”

Section: Wetland Floral Compositionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Wetland-Dryland Vegetational Dynamics in the Pennsylvanian Ice Age Tropics

DiMichele¹

2014

International Journal of Plant Sciences

161

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Premise of research. The Late Paleozoic Ice Age was the last extensive pre-Pleistocene ice age. It includes many climate changes of different intensities, permitting examination of many and varied biotic responses. The tropical Pennsylvanian Subperiod, usually visualized as one vast wetland coal forest, in fact also was dominated, periodically, by seasonally dry vegetation that, in turn, covered most of the central and western Pangean supercontinent. Equatorial wetland and dryland biomes oscillated during single glacial-interglacial cycles. This recognition changes understanding of the Coal Age tropics; examination of their spatiotemporal patterns indicates that these vegetation types responded differently to global environmental disturbances and long-term trends and points to potentially different underlying controls on evolutionary histories of their component lineages.Methodology. This study is based on the published literature and on examination of geological exposures and fossil floras, mainly from North America but also from other parts of the world.Pivotal results. Wetlands and seasonally dry habitats were equally part of the Coal Age Pangean tropics. They dominated these landscapes at different times, under different climatic regimes. Wetland vegetation was likely forced into refugia during seasonally dry (subhumid to semiarid) parts of glacial-interglacial cycles; it reemerged/reassembled during wet (humid to perhumid) periods. Seasonally dry vegetation resided permanently in areas of western and central Pangea and in microhabitats within the Central Pangean Mountains. Both floras had lower biodiversity than modern floras in similar habitats. The wetland flora species pool was more phylogenetically disparate than any modern vegetation. In contrast, seasonally dry floras were dominated by seed plants. These biomes responded differently to acute environmental changes and chronic long-term aridification.Conclusions. From ecological or evolutionary perspectives, the present-day world is but one possibility. Lower-diversity worlds such as the late Paleozoic, with a rich spectrum of environmental variations, offer insights into relationships between organisms and environments that expand understanding of these phenomena and enlarge our sense of what is possible or probable as we look to the future.

show abstract

Section: Wetland Floral Compositionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Wetland-Dryland Vegetational Dynamics in the Pennsylvanian Ice Age Tropics

DiMichele¹

2014

International Journal of Plant Sciences

161

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, the ratio between stem: pith diameter ratio and is 2.53 and 2.96 for Pennsylvanian and Permian datasets, respectively. In preparing these statistics, we excluded three very large stems (600 mm, 240 mm and approximately 250 mm) with relatively small piths (15 mm or less) recently described from the Early Permian of Chemnitz, Germany (Rößler and Noll, 2006) and the Late Permian of southwest China (Wang et al, 2006), whose inclusion would have significantly skewed the results.…”

Section: Comparison Of Sediment-cast Dimensions With Anatomically Prementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this model, we refer back to the comments of Rößler and Noll (2006) regarding the much greater-than-presently-appreciated diversity of the calamitaleans. As already discussed, it appears that the calamitaleans of highly-disturbed riparian environments may have been morphologically distinct from those of more stable peatsubstrate habitats or long-persistent, low sediment flux, swampy sites.…”

Section: A Model For the Formation Of Prostrate Adpressed Calamitalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Numerous examples of such woody calamitalean stems are known from coal-ball permineralizations collected directly from coal beds, silicified nodules, or trees preserved as petrifactions in ash beds (e.g., Fig. 3; Williamson and Scott, 1895;Anderson, 1954;Andrews and Agashe, 1965;Rößler and Noll, 2006). However, the occurrence of a woody cylinder also raises a problem for the traditional taphonomic model because, if correct, the preserved pith cast ought be surrounded by a thick covering of wood and bark, which is not seen in the many examples of upright calamitaleans that we have observed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Calamitalean “pith casts” reconsidered

DiMichele

Falcon-Lang

2012

Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…These features indicated that some, if not all, of the Permian calamitaleans may have survived short seasonal episodes of dryness during which time plants reduced water uptake and shed their leafy twigs. This inference is supported by the large-diameter, long living Arthropitys trunks [25]. Furthermore previous studies have shown that the rhizomes considered to promote a clonal habit in this plant are not functional in adolescent specimens, and completely disappeared in adults by producing a trunk base with woody adventitious roots anchoring the upright trees in the soil [24].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%