Abstract
Abstract
Background
Around the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, an obvious global cooling occurred, which resulted in dramatic changes in terrestrial ecosystems and the evolutionary trends of numerous organisms. However, how plant lineages responded to the cooling has remained unknown until now. Between ca. 70–60 Ma Mesocyparis McIver & Basinger (Cupressaceae), an extinct conifer genus, was distributed from eastern Asia to western North America and provides an excellent opportunity to solve this riddle.
Results
Here we report a new species, Mesocyparis sinica from the early Paleocene of Jiayin, Heilongjiang, northeastern China. By integrating lines of evidence from phylogeny and comparative morphology of Mesocyparis, we found that during ca.70–60 Ma, the size of seed cone of Mesocyparis more than doubled, probably driven by the cooling during the K-Pg transition, which might be an effective adaptation for seed dispersal by animals. More importantly, we discovered that the northern limit of this genus, as well as those of two other arboreal taxa Metasequoia Miki ex Hu et Cheng (gymnosperm) and Nordenskioldia Heer (angiosperm), migrated ca.4–5° southward in paleolatitude during this time interval.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that the cooling during the K-Pg transition may have been responsible for the increase in size of the seed cone of Mesocyparis and have driven the migration of plants southwards.
Funder
Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Basic Project of the State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Cited by
4 articles.
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