Flowering plants welcome other life
Burst of evolution 100 million years ago opened new niches
A burst of flowering plant evolution some hundred million years ago may have served as an ecological stimulus package, spurring the radiation of ants, salamanders and other life.
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A new DNA analysis examines a prominent branch on the flowering plant family tree that includes the pea family; fruit-bearing trees such as apples, peaches and plums; and the birch, elm, and oak and beech families. The findings suggest that the arrival of these plants changed the face of Earth’s forests, which may have opened a suite of ecological nooks and crannies, ripe for colonization by beetles, mammals, frogs and ferns, the researchers report online February 9 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research is in line with the fossil record, says paleobotanist William Crepet of Cornell University. Scientists have known there was a rapid radiation of these plants around this time, and there is fossil evidence of the plants’ flowers from 100 million and 94 million years ago. “This is a good, solid study,” Crepet says.