Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 370, Issue 1666, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0343
Keywords
tracheophyte; bryophyte; Cooksonia; cryptogamic cover; Siluro-Devonian; terrestrialization
Categories
Funding
- Leverhulme Trust
- Gatsby Charitable Foundation
- NERC
- Plant Origins ITN
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During the 1920s, the botanist W. H. Lang set out to collect and investigate some very unpromising fossils of uncertain affinity, which predated the known geological record of life on land. His discoveries led to a landmark publication in 1937, 'On the plant-remains from the Downtonian of England and Wales', in which he revealed a diversity of small fossil organisms of great simplicity that shed light on the nature of the earliest known land plants. These and subsequent discoveries have taken on new relevance as botanists seek to understand the plant genome and the early evolution of fundamental organ systems. Also, our developing knowledge of the composition of early land-based ecosystems and the interactions among their various components is contributing to our understanding of how life on land affects key Earth Systems (e.g. carbon cycle). The emerging paradigm is one of early life on land dominated by microbes, small bryophyte-like organisms and lichens. Collectively called cryptogamic covers, these are comparable with those that dominate certain ecosystems today. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
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