Diversity changes in lycopsid and aquatic fern megaspores through geologic time

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Abstract
Quantitative data on lycopsid and aquatic fern megaspore taxa recovered from Carboniferous, Mesozoic, and Tertiary strata have been compiled in order to analyze the changes in diversity of the two groups of fossil plants that produced them. Numbers of species of lycopsid megaspores are similar in the Carboniferous and Mesozoic, whereas the diversity of megafossils is much lower in post-Paleozoic deposits. Our data suggest that lycopsids were more diverse in the Mesozoic than previously thought and that there is a preservational bias against the megafossils, because the plants were probably mainly herbaceous. Heterosporous aquatic ferns first appeared in the Neocomian and gradually diversified until the early Late Cretaceous, after which their numbers remained relatively stable, whereas the variety of lycopsids declined dramatically during the Late Cretaceous. These changes occurred at a time of rapid angiosperm diversification. The reduced diversity of the lycopsids may have been caused by the invasion of their aquatic and damp forest-floor habitats by heterosporous ferns and by aquatic and herbaceous angiosperms. These diversity changes do not seem to be directly related to the global events at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, but the relatively few samples available and the resulting range truncation would make detection of such correlations difficult.

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