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Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet

Spinescence is an important functional trait possessed by many plant species for physical defence against mammalian herbivores. The development of spinescence must have been closely associated with both biotic and abiotic factors in the geological past, but knowledge of spinescence evolution suffers...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Xinwen, Gélin, Uriel, Spicer, Robert A., Wu, Feixiang, Farnsworth, Alexander, Chen, Peirong, Del Rio, Cédric, Li, Shufeng, Liu, Jia, Huang, Jian, Spicer, Teresa E. V., Tomlinson, Kyle W., Valdes, Paul J., Xu, Xiaoting, Zhang, Shitao, Deng, Tao, Zhou, Zhekun, Su, Tao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9249787/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35778378
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31512-z
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author Zhang, Xinwen
Gélin, Uriel
Spicer, Robert A.
Wu, Feixiang
Farnsworth, Alexander
Chen, Peirong
Del Rio, Cédric
Li, Shufeng
Liu, Jia
Huang, Jian
Spicer, Teresa E. V.
Tomlinson, Kyle W.
Valdes, Paul J.
Xu, Xiaoting
Zhang, Shitao
Deng, Tao
Zhou, Zhekun
Su, Tao
author_facet Zhang, Xinwen
Gélin, Uriel
Spicer, Robert A.
Wu, Feixiang
Farnsworth, Alexander
Chen, Peirong
Del Rio, Cédric
Li, Shufeng
Liu, Jia
Huang, Jian
Spicer, Teresa E. V.
Tomlinson, Kyle W.
Valdes, Paul J.
Xu, Xiaoting
Zhang, Shitao
Deng, Tao
Zhou, Zhekun
Su, Tao
author_sort Zhang, Xinwen
collection PubMed
description Spinescence is an important functional trait possessed by many plant species for physical defence against mammalian herbivores. The development of spinescence must have been closely associated with both biotic and abiotic factors in the geological past, but knowledge of spinescence evolution suffers from a dearth of fossil records, with most studies focusing on spatial patterns and spinescence-herbivore interactions in modern ecosystems. Numerous well-preserved Eocene (~39 Ma) plant fossils exhibiting seven different spine morphologies discovered recently in the central Tibetan Plateau, combined with molecular phylogenetic character reconstruction, point not only to the presence of a diversity of spiny plants in Eocene central Tibet but a rapid diversification of spiny plants in Eurasia around that time. These spiny plants occupied an open woodland landscape, indicated by numerous megafossils and grass phytoliths found in the same deposits, as well as numerical climate and vegetation modelling. Our study shows that regional aridification and expansion of herbivorous mammals may have driven the diversification of functional spinescence in central Tibetan woodlands, ~24 million years earlier than similar transformations in Africa.
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spelling pubmed-92497872022-07-03 Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet Zhang, Xinwen Gélin, Uriel Spicer, Robert A. Wu, Feixiang Farnsworth, Alexander Chen, Peirong Del Rio, Cédric Li, Shufeng Liu, Jia Huang, Jian Spicer, Teresa E. V. Tomlinson, Kyle W. Valdes, Paul J. Xu, Xiaoting Zhang, Shitao Deng, Tao Zhou, Zhekun Su, Tao Nat Commun Article Spinescence is an important functional trait possessed by many plant species for physical defence against mammalian herbivores. The development of spinescence must have been closely associated with both biotic and abiotic factors in the geological past, but knowledge of spinescence evolution suffers from a dearth of fossil records, with most studies focusing on spatial patterns and spinescence-herbivore interactions in modern ecosystems. Numerous well-preserved Eocene (~39 Ma) plant fossils exhibiting seven different spine morphologies discovered recently in the central Tibetan Plateau, combined with molecular phylogenetic character reconstruction, point not only to the presence of a diversity of spiny plants in Eocene central Tibet but a rapid diversification of spiny plants in Eurasia around that time. These spiny plants occupied an open woodland landscape, indicated by numerous megafossils and grass phytoliths found in the same deposits, as well as numerical climate and vegetation modelling. Our study shows that regional aridification and expansion of herbivorous mammals may have driven the diversification of functional spinescence in central Tibetan woodlands, ~24 million years earlier than similar transformations in Africa. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-07-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9249787/ /pubmed/35778378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31512-z Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as 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 images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Zhang, Xinwen
Gélin, Uriel
Spicer, Robert A.
Wu, Feixiang
Farnsworth, Alexander
Chen, Peirong
Del Rio, Cédric
Li, Shufeng
Liu, Jia
Huang, Jian
Spicer, Teresa E. V.
Tomlinson, Kyle W.
Valdes, Paul J.
Xu, Xiaoting
Zhang, Shitao
Deng, Tao
Zhou, Zhekun
Su, Tao
Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
title Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
title_full Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
title_fullStr Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
title_full_unstemmed Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
title_short Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
title_sort rapid eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central tibet
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9249787/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35778378
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31512-z
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