Character diversification and patterns of evolution in early vascular plants
- 1 January 1984
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Paleobiology
- Vol. 10 (1), 34-47
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0094837300008009
Abstract
Available data on the stratigraphic ranges of latest Silurian and Devonian vascular plant macro-fossils (sporophytes) and spores provide insights into the tempo and mode of early tracheophyte evolution. Patterns of diversification, origination, and extinction conform in general to the predictions of Sepkoski's kinetic model of diversification. Rates of generic origination and extinction vary not only through time but also between organ systems for a single time interval. This fact, coupled with data on longevity and turnover and comparative morphological observations, can be used to document mosaic evolution in early vascular plant history. Mosaic evolution is an important theme in plant evolution; indeed, what we recognize as macroevolutionary events often correlate with brief periods of pronounced mosaicism. Such evolutionary patterns reflect the developmental biology of tracheophytes in which individual organs often have life spans that are considerably shorter than the life of the whole plant. Under these conditions, individual organs or organ systems can respond to different sets of evolutionary pressures.The major period of early vascular plant diversification occurred during the late Early and early Middle Devonian Period, 30 Myr or more after the origin of the group. Such lags in diversification are not uncommon in the fossil record. Sometimes they reflect extrinsic controls on diversification, but in other cases they appear to be a consequence of intrinsic rates of origination and extinction.This publication has 40 references indexed in Scilit:
- Patterns in vascular land plant diversificationNature, 1983
- Comparative Paleobiochemistry of Some Fossil and Extant FagaceaeAmerican Journal of Botany, 1981
- Evolutionary Polarity of Character StatesAnnual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1980
- A RE‐INVESTIGATION OF CHARACTER CORRELATIONS AMONG DICOTYLEDONSNew Phytologist, 1980
- Phanerozoic Land-Plant Diversity in North AmericaScience, 1979
- The earliest vascular land plants: continuing the search for proofLethaia, 1979
- A Theory of Diversity Equilibrium and Morphological EvolutionScience, 1979
- Foerstiaand recent interpretations of early, vascular land plantsLethaia, 1978
- Early vascular land plants: proof and conjectureLethaia, 1977
- XXIV.—On Old Red Sandstone Plants showing Structure, from the Rhynie Chert Bed, Aberdeenshire Part I. Rhynia Gwynne-Vaughani, Kidston and LangTransactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1917