The earliest land plants

Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics

Volumn 39, Issue , 2008, Pages 459-477

  Gensel, Patricia G ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA   (United States)

Author keywords

Dispersed spores; Embryophytes; Evolution; Macrofossils; Mesofossils

Indexed keywords

BRYOPHYTE; DEVONIAN; DISPERSAL; EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY; FOSSIL RECORD; ORDOVICIAN; PALEOBOTANY; SILURIAN; SPORE; ULTRASTRUCTURE;

BACTERIA (MICROORGANISMS); BRYOPHYTA; BRYOPHYTES; EMBRYOPHYTA;

EID: 58549098576     PISSN: 1543592X     EISSN: 15452069     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.39.110707.173526     Document Type: Review

References (90)

1. Algeo TJ, Scheckler SE, Maynard JB. 2001. Effects of the Middle to Late Devonian spread of vascular land plants on weathering regimes, marine biotas, and global climate. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 213-36
2. Banks HP. 1975. The oldest vascular plants: a note of caution. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 20:13-25
3. Bateman RM, Crane PR, DiMichele WA, Kenrick PR, Rowe NP, et al. 1998. Early evolution of land plants: phylogeny, physiology, and ecology of the primary terrestrial radiation. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 29:263-92
4. 2. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102:1302-5
5. 2. Science 276:544-46
6. 2 during the Paleozoic. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 173-78
7. Boyce CK. 2008. How green was Cooksonia? The importance of size in understanding the early evolution of physiology in the vascular plant lineage. Paleobiology 34(2):179-94
8. Cai CY, Dou YW, Edwards D. 1993. New observations on a Prídolí plant assemblage from north Xinjiang, northwest China, with comments on its evolutionary and palaeogeographical significance. Geol. Mag. 130:155-70
9. DiMichele WA, Hook RW. 1992. Paleozoic terrestrial ecosystems. In Terrestrial Ecosystems through Time: Evolutionary Paleoecology of Terrestrial Plants and Animals, ed. AK Behrensmeyer, JD Damuth, WA DiMichele, R Potts, H-D Sues, SL Wing, pp. 205-35. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
10. 2 levels. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 237-53
11. Edwards D. 1986. Dispersed cuticles of putative nonvascular plants from the Lower Devonian of Britain. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 93:250-75
12. Edwards D. 2000. The role of Mid-Palaeozoic mesofossils in the detection of early bryophytes. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 355:733-55
13. Edwards D. 2003. Xylem in early tracheophytes. Plant Cell Environ. 26:57-72
14. Edwards D, Banks HP, Ciurca SJ, Laub RS. 2004. New Silurian cooksonias from dolostones of north-eastern North America. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 146:399-413
15. Edwards D, Richardson JB. 2004. Silurian and Lower Devonian plant assemblages from the Anglo-Welsh Basin: a palaeobotanical and palynological synthesis. Geol. J. 39:375-402
16. Edwards D, Wang Y, Bassett M, Li C-S. 2007. The earliest vascular plant or a later rooting system? Pinnatiramosus qianensis from the marine Lower Silurian Xiushan formation, Guizhou Province, China. Palaios 22(2):155-65
17. Edwards D, Wellman CH. 2001. Embryophytes on land: The Ordovician to Lochkovian (Lower Devonian) record. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 3-28
18. Edwards D, Wellman CH, Axe L. 1998. The fossil record of early land plants and interrelationships between primitive embryophytes: too little too late? In Bryology for the 21st century, ed. JW Bates, NW Ashton, JG Duckett, pp. 15-43. Leeds, UK: Maney Publ. Br. Bryolog. Soc.
19. Edwards D, Wellman CH, Axe L. 1999. Tetrads in sporangia and spore masses from the Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian of the Welsh Borderland. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 130:111-56
20. 2) estimations. Geology 26:143-46
21. Erwin D. 1992. A preliminary classification of evolutionary radiations. Hist. Biol. 6:133-47
22. Ewbank G, Edwards D, Abbott GD. 1996. Chemical characterization of Lower Devonian vascular plants. Org. Geochem. 25:461-73
23. Fanning U, Richardson JB, Edwards D. 1988. Cryptic evolution in an early land plants. Evol. Trends Plants 2:13-24
24. Gastaldo RA, DiMichele WA, eds. 2000. Phanerozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems. Tulsa: Paleontol. Soc. Pap. 6
25. Gensel PG, Edwards D, eds. 2001. Plants Invade the Land: Evolutionary and Environmental Perspectives. New York: Columbia Univ. Press
26. Gensel PG, Johnson NG, Strother PK. 1991. Early land plant debris (Hooker's "Waifs and Strays"?). Palaios 5:520-47
27. Gensel PG, Kotyk ME, Basinger JF. 2001. Morphology of above- and below-ground structures in Early Devonian (Pragian-Emsian) plants. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 83-102
28. Gerrienne P, Bergamaschi S, Pereira E, Rodrigues M-AC, Steemans P. 2001. An Early Devonian flora, including Cooksonia, from the Paran a Basin (Brazil). Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 116:19-38
29. Gerrienne P, Dilcher DL, Bergamaschi S, Milagres I, Pereira E, et al. 2006. An exceptional specimen of the early land plant Cooksonia paranensis, and a hypothesis on the life cycle of the earliest eutracheophytes. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 142(3-4):123-30
30. Goromykin VV, Hellwig FH. 2005. Evidence for the most basal split in land plants dividing bryophyte and tracheophyte lineages. Plant Syst. Evol. 254:93-103
31. Gradstein FM, Ogg JG, Smith AG. 2004. A Geologic Time Scale 2004. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
32. Graham LE. 1993. Origin of Land Plants. New York: Wiley. 287 pp.
33. Graham LE, Gray J. 2001. The origin, morphology and ecophysiology of early embryophytes. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 140-58
34. Graham LE, Kodner RB, Fisher MM, Graham JE, et al. 2004a. Early land plant adaptations to terrestrial stress: a focus on phenolics. See Hemsley & Poole 2004, pp. 155-69
35. Graham LE, Wilcox LW, Cook ME, Gensel PG. 2004b. Resistant tissues of modern marchantioid liverworts resemble enigmatic Early Paleozoic microfossils. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101(30):11025-29
36. Gray J. 1985. The microfossil record of early land plants: advances in understanding of early terrestrialization, 1970-1984. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 309:167-95
37. Gray J. 1991. Tetrahedraletes, Nodospora, and the "cross" tetrad: an accretion of myth. In Pollen and Spores, Patterns of Diversification. Systematics Association Special Volume, ed. S Blackmore, SH Barnes, pp. 49-87. Oxford: Clarendon Press
38. Habgood KS, Edwards D, Axe L. 2002. New perspectives on Cooksonia from the Lower Devonian of the Welsh Borderland. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 139:339-59
39. Heckman DS, Geiser DM, Eidell BF, Stauffer RL, Kardos NL, Hedges SB. 2001. Molecular evidence for the early colonization of land by fungi and plants. Science 293:1129-33
40. Hemsley AR, Poole I. 2004. The Evolution of Plant Physiology. London: Elsevier
41. Hernick LV, Landing E, Bartowski K. 2008. Earth's oldest liverworts - Metzgeriothallus sharonae sp. nov. from the Middle Devonian (Givetian) of eastern New York, USA. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 148:154-62
42. Hotton CL, Hueber FM, Griffing DH, Bridge JS. 2001. Early terrestrial plant environments: an example from the Emsian of Gaspé, Canada. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 179-212
43. Hueber FM. 1961. Hepaticites devonicus, a new fossil liverwort from the Devonian of New York. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 48:125-31
44. Ischenko TA. 1975. The Late Silurian Flora of Podolia 1-180. Kiev: Naukova Dumka
45. Karol KG, McCourt R, Cimino CT, Delwiche CF. 2001. The closest living relatives of land plants. Science 294:2351-53
46. Kenrick PR. 2000. The relationships of vascular plants. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 355:847-55
47. Kenrick PR, Crane PR. 1997a. The origin and early evolution of plants on land. Nature 389:33-39
48. Kenrick PR, Crane PR. 1997b. The Origin and Early Diversification of Land Plants. A Cladistic Study. Washington, DC: Smithson. Inst. Press
49. Kodner RB, Graham LE. 2001. High-temperature, acid-hydrolyzed remains of Polytrichum (Musci, Polytrichaceae) resemble enigmatic Silurian-Devonian tubular microfossils. Am. J. Bot. 88(3):462-66
50. Kotyk ME, Basinger JF, Gensel PG, deFreitas T. 2002. Morphologically complex plant macrofossils from the Late Silurian of Arctic Canada. Am. J. Bot. 89(6):1004-13
51. Kroken SB, Graham LE, Cook ME. 1996. Occurrence and evolutionary significance of resistant cell walls in charophytes and bryophytes. Am. J. Bot. 83:1241-54
52. Lang WH. 1937. On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 227:245-91
53. Mishler BD, Churchill SP. 1984. A cladistic approach to the phylogeny of the bryophytes. Brittonia 36:406-24
54. Nikrent DL, Parkinson CL, Palmer JD, Duff RJ. 2000. Multigene phylogeny of land plants: hornworts are basal and mosses are sister to liverworts. Mol. Biol. Evol. 17:1885-95
55. Qiu YL, Cho YR, Cox JC, Palmer JD. 1998. The gain of three mitochondrial introns identifies liverworts as the earliest land plants. Nature 394:671-74
56. Qiu YL, Li L, Wang B, Chen Z, Dombrovska O, et al. 2007. A nonflowering land plant phylogeny inferred from nucleotide sequences of seven chloroplast, mitochondrial, and nuclear genes. Int. J. Plant Sci. 168(5):691-708
57. Qiu YL, Li L, Wang B, Knoop V, Groth-Malonek M, et al. 2006. The deepest divergences in land plants inferred from phylogenomic evidence. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103:15511-16
58. Raven JA, Edwards D. 2004. Physiological evolution of lower embryophytes: adaptations to the terrestrial environment. See Hemsley & Poole 2004, pp. 17-41
59. Renzaglia KS, Duff RJ, Nikrent DL, Garbary DJ. 2000. Vegetative and reproductive innovations of early land plants: implications for a unified phylogeny. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 355:769-93
60. Retallack GJ. 2000. Ordovician life on land and early Paleozoic global change. See Gastaldo & DiMichele 2000, pp. 21-45
61. Richardson JB. 1996. Lower and middle Plaeozoic records of terrestrial palynomorphs. In Palynology: Principles and Applications, ed. J Jansonius, C McGregor, 2:555-74. College Station, TX: Am. Assoc. Stratigr. Palynol. Found.
62. Richardson JB. 2007. Cryptospores and miospores, their distribution patterns in the Lower Old Red Sandstone of the Anglo-Welsh Basin, and the habitat of their parent plants. Bull. Geosci. 82(4):355-64
63. Richardson JB, Burgess ND. 1999. Sporomorph evolution in the Anglo-Welsh basin: tempo and parallelism. In The Evolution of Plant Architecture, ed. MH Kurmann, AR Hemsley, pp. 35-49. Richmond, Surrey, UK: R. Bot. Gard. Kew
64. Rickards RB. 2000. The age of the earliest club mosses: the Silurian Baragwanathia flora in Victoria, Australia. Geol. Mag. 137:207-9
65. Rothwell G. 1995. The fossil history of branching: implications for the phylogeny of land plants. In Experimental and Molecular Approaches to Plant Biosystematics, ed. PC Hoch, AG Stephenson, pp. 71-86. St. Louis: Mo. Bot. Gard.
66. Sanderson MJ. 2003. Molecular data from 27 proteins do not support a Precambrian orgin of land plants. Am. J. Bot. 90(6):954-56
67. Shear WA, Selden PA. 2001. Rustling in the undergrowth: animals in early terrestrial ecosystems. See Gensel & Edwards 2001, pp. 29-51
68. Steemans P. 1999. Paléodiversification des spores et des cryptospores de l'Ordovicien au Dévonien inférieur. Geobios 32(2):341-52
69. Steemans P. 2000. Miospore evolution from the Ordovician to the Silurian. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 113:189-96
70. Steemans P, le Hérissé A, Bozdogan N. 1996. Ordovician and Silurian cryptospores and miospores from southeastern Turkey. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 93:35-76
71. Steemans P, Wellman CH, Filatoff J. 2007. Palaeophytogeographical and palaeoecological implications of a miospore assemblage of earliest Devonian (Lochkovian) age from Saudi Arabia. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 250:237-54
72. Stein WE, Mannolini F, Hernick LV, Landing E, Berry CM. 2007. Giant cladoxylopsid trees solve the enigma of the Earth's earliest forest stumps at Gilboa. Nature 446:904-7
73. Strother PK. 2000. Cryptospores: The origin and early evolution of the terrestrial flora. See Gastaldo & DiMichele 2000, pp. 3-20
74. Strother PK, Al-Hajri SA, Traverse A. 1996. New evidence for land plants from the lower Middle Ordovician of Saudi Arabia. Geology 24:55-58
75. Strother PK, Beck JH. 2000. Spore-like microfossils from Middle Cambrian strata: expanding the meaning of the term cryptospore. In Pollen and Spores: Morphology and Biology, ed. MM Harley, CM Morton, S Blackmore, pp. 413-424. Richmond, Surrey, UK: R. Bot. Gard. Kew
76. Strother PK, Wood GD, Taylor WA, Beck JH. 2004. Middle Cambrian cryptospores and the origin of land plants. Mem. Assoc. Australas. Palaeontol. 29:99-113
77. Taylor WA. 1996. Ultrastructure of lower Paleozoic dyads from southern Ohio. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 92:269-79
78. Taylor WA. 2003. Ultrastructure of selected Silurian trilete spores and the putative Ordovician trilete spore Virgatisporites. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 126:211-23
79. Tims JD, Chambers TC. 1984. Rhyniophytina and Trimerophytina from the early land flora of Victoria, Australia. Palaeontology 27:265-79
80. Tomescu AMF, Rothwell GW, Honegger R. 2006. Cyanobacterial macrophytes in an Early Silurian (Llandovery) continental biota: Passage Creek, lower Massanutten Sandstone, Virginia, USA. Lethaia 39:329-38
81. Van Bergen PF, Blokker P, Collinson ME, Sinninghe Damsté JS, de Leeuw JW. 2004. Structural biomacromolecules in plants: what can be learnt from the fossil record? In Evolution of Plant Physiology, ed. AR Hemsley, I Poole, pp. 133-54. London/Amsterdam: Elsevier
82. Wellman CH. 1995. "Phytodebris" from Scottish Silurian and Lower Devonian continental deposits. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 84:255-79
83. Wellman CH. 1996. Cryptospores from the type area of the Caradoc Series in southern Britain. Spec. Pap. Palaeontol. 55:103-36.
84. Wellman CH. 1999. Ordovician land plants: evidence and interpretation. Acta Univ. Carol.-Geol. 43:275-77
85. Wellman CH. 2004. Dating the origin of land plants. In Telling the Evolutionary Time: Molecular Clocks and the Fossil Record, ed. PJC Donoghue, MP Smith, pp. 119-41. London: Taylor & Francis
86. Wellman CH, Edwards D, Axe L. 1998a. Permanent dyads in sporangia and spore masses from the Lower Devonian of the Welsh Borderland. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 127:117-47
87. Wellman CH, Edwards D, Axe L. 1998b. Ultrastructure of laevigate hilate cryptospores in sporangia and spore masses from the Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian of the Welsh Borderland. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 353:1983-2004
88. Wellman CH, Gray J. 2000. The microfossil record of early land plants. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B 355:717-32
89. Wellman CH, Habgood K, Jenkins G, Richardson JB. 2000. A new plant assemblage (microfossil and megafossil) from the Lower Old Red Sandstone of the Anglo-Welsh Basin: Its implications for the palaeoecology of early terrestrial ecosystems. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol. 109:161-96
90. Wellman CH, Osterloff PL, Mohiuddin U. 2003. Fragments of the earliest land plants. Nature 425:282-85