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A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China

BACKGROUND: The evolution of the Jehol Biota of western Liaoning in China includes three phases, initiation in the Dabeigou phase, radiation in the Yixian phase, and decline in the Jiufotang phase. Numerous ephedroid macrofossils were reported from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation. However, so...

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Autores principales: Yang, Yong, Wang, Yingwei, Ferguson, David Kay
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7001366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32019502
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1569-y
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author Yang, Yong
Wang, Yingwei
Ferguson, David Kay
author_facet Yang, Yong
Wang, Yingwei
Ferguson, David Kay
author_sort Yang, Yong
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The evolution of the Jehol Biota of western Liaoning in China includes three phases, initiation in the Dabeigou phase, radiation in the Yixian phase, and decline in the Jiufotang phase. Numerous ephedroid macrofossils were reported from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation. However, so far none has been found in the younger Jiufotang Formation (ca. 120.3 Ma) of western Liaoning. RESULTS: Here we report a new species Jianchangia verticillata gen. et sp. nov. with unusual morphology from the Lower Cretaceous of the Jiufotang Formation, Lamadong Village, Jianchang County, Liaoning. This species is the first record of gnetophytes from the Jiufotang Formation. It is similar to other ephedroid species from the Yixian Formation in possessing linear leaves with parallel veins, jointed shoots with swollen nodes and longitudinally furrowed internodes, and ovulate cones possessing two whorls of bracts enclosing two chlamydosperms, but differs from all known species by the ovulate cone having multiple fine linear verticillate bracts. CONCLUSIONS: This study expands our knowledge about the diversity of early gnetophytes in the Lower Cretaceous, and demonstrates the lineage continuity of gnetophytes from the Yixian Formation to the younger Jiufotang Formation.
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spelling pubmed-70013662020-02-10 A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China Yang, Yong Wang, Yingwei Ferguson, David Kay BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: The evolution of the Jehol Biota of western Liaoning in China includes three phases, initiation in the Dabeigou phase, radiation in the Yixian phase, and decline in the Jiufotang phase. Numerous ephedroid macrofossils were reported from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation. However, so far none has been found in the younger Jiufotang Formation (ca. 120.3 Ma) of western Liaoning. RESULTS: Here we report a new species Jianchangia verticillata gen. et sp. nov. with unusual morphology from the Lower Cretaceous of the Jiufotang Formation, Lamadong Village, Jianchang County, Liaoning. This species is the first record of gnetophytes from the Jiufotang Formation. It is similar to other ephedroid species from the Yixian Formation in possessing linear leaves with parallel veins, jointed shoots with swollen nodes and longitudinally furrowed internodes, and ovulate cones possessing two whorls of bracts enclosing two chlamydosperms, but differs from all known species by the ovulate cone having multiple fine linear verticillate bracts. CONCLUSIONS: This study expands our knowledge about the diversity of early gnetophytes in the Lower Cretaceous, and demonstrates the lineage continuity of gnetophytes from the Yixian Formation to the younger Jiufotang Formation. BioMed Central 2020-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7001366/ /pubmed/32019502 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1569-y Text en © The Author(s). 2020 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Yang, Yong
Wang, Yingwei
Ferguson, David Kay
A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China
title A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China
title_full A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China
title_fullStr A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China
title_full_unstemmed A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China
title_short A new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of northeastern China
title_sort new macrofossil ephedroid plant with unusual bract morphology from the lower cretaceous jiufotang formation of northeastern china
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7001366/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32019502
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1569-y
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