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Early Middle Ordovician evidence for land plants in Argentina (eastern Gondwana)
Article first published online: 20 AUG 2010
DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03433.x
© The Authors (2010). Journal compilation © New Phytologist Trust (2010)
Issue
New Phytologist
Special Issue: Featured papers on ‘Pollinator-mediated selection and floral evolution’
Volume 188, Issue 2, pages 365–369, October 2010
Additional Information
How to Cite
Rubinstein, C. V., Gerrienne, P., de la Puente, G. S., Astini, R. A. and Steemans, P. (2010), Early Middle Ordovician evidence for land plants in Argentina (eastern Gondwana). New Phytologist, 188: 365–369. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03433.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 27 SEP 2010
- Article first published online: 20 AUG 2010
- Received: 30 June 2010, Accepted: 19 July 2010
Keywords:
- cryptospores;
- embryophytes;
- evolution;
- Gondwana;
- land plants;
- Middle Ordovician;
- origin
Summary
- •The advent of embryophytes (land plants) is among the most important evolutionary breakthroughs in Earth history. It irreversibly changed climates and biogeochemical processes on a global scale; it allowed all eukaryotic terrestrial life to evolve and to invade nearly all continental environments. Before this work, the earliest unequivocal embryophyte traces were late Darriwilian (late Middle Ordovician; c. 463–461 million yr ago (Ma)) cryptospores from Saudi Arabia and from the Czech Republic (western Gondwana).
- •Here, we processed Dapingian (early Middle Ordovician, c. 473–471 Ma) palynological samples from Argentina (eastern Gondwana).
- •We discovered a diverse cryptospore assemblage, including naked and envelope-enclosed monads and tetrads, representing five genera.
- •Our discovery reinforces the earlier suggestion that embryophytes first evolved in Gondwana. It indicates that the terrestrialization of plants might have begun in the eastern part of Gondwana. The diversity of the Dapingian assemblage implies an earlier, Early Ordovician or even Cambrian, origin of embryophytes. Dapingian to Aeronian (Early Silurian) cryptospore assemblages are similar, suggesting that the rate of embryophyte evolution was extremely slow during the first c. 35–45 million yr of their diversification. The Argentinean cryptospores predate other cryptospore occurrences by c. 8–12 million yr, and are currently the earliest evidence of plants on land.