Journal
NEW PHYTOLOGIST
Volume 218, Issue 2, Pages 819-834Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/nph.15011
Keywords
angiosperms; Bayesian analysis; Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution; divergence time; fossil record
Categories
Funding
- CONACyT-Mexico
- Wolfson Foundation
- Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council (UK) grant [BB/N000609/1]
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/N002067/1]
- Royal Society
- UCL scholarship
- BBSRC [BB/N000609/1, BB/G006660/1, BB/N000919/1, BB/J00538X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- NERC [NE/N003438/1, NE/N002067/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/J00538X/1, BB/N000609/1, BB/G006660/1, BB/N000919/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/N003438/1, NE/N002067/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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Through the lens of the fossil record, angiosperm diversification precipitated a Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution (KTR) in which pollinators, herbivores and predators underwent explosive co-diversification. Molecular dating studies imply that early angiosperm evolution is not documented in the fossil record. This mismatch remains controversial. We used a Bayesian molecular dating method to analyse a dataset of 83 genes from 644 taxa and 52 fossil calibrations to explore the effect of different interpretations of the fossil record, molecular clock models, data partitioning, among other factors, on angiosperm divergence time estimation. Controlling for different sources of uncertainty indicates that the timescale of angiosperm diversification is much less certain than previous molecular dating studies have suggested. Discord between molecular clock and purely fossil-based interpretations of angiosperm diversification may be a consequence of false precision on both sides. We reject a post-Jurassic origin of angiosperms, supporting the notion of a cryptic early history of angiosperms, but this history may be as much as 121Myr, or as little as 23Myr. These conclusions remain compatible with palaeobotanical evidence and a more general KTR in which major groups of angiosperms diverged later within the Cretaceous, alongside the diversification of pollinators, herbivores and their predators.
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