Research

Emmy Noether funded project: “Spatial signal and bias in the fossil record of seed plants in thelate Mesozoic”.

This project will explore the spatial and temporal distribution of both the rock record and the fossil record of gymnosperms across the Jurassic and the Cretaceous. This period was pivotal for the terrestrial realm, with the rise of the flowering plants having a radical impact on the evolution of many other groups of organisms, such as the mammals, birds, and insects, and the carrying capacity of terrestrial ecosystems. More recently, the radiation of the flowering plants in the Cretaceous has been identified as one of many radiations across the seed plants, suggesting that the Early Cretaceous was a period of expansion for the terrestrial flora. However, the distribution of the fossil record between the Early Cretaceous and the preceding Jurassic is particularly sparce both temporally and spatially, and thus this potential biological radiation might be the results of bias in the rocks. For this reason, we will explicitly collect information on the distribution of Jurassic and Cretaceous fossiliferous rocks across the globe, as well as data on traits and diversity of gymnosperms during the same period, focusing on the widespread leaf fossil record. We will then use these data to disentangle the effects of geology and biology on the dynamics observed in the fossil record, and uncover the drivers of this major turnover event in the global flora.