TY - JOUR
AU1 - Cowling, Sharon A.
AB - Summary The plant fossil record was reviewed to highlight how consideration of plant carbon balance strengthens our understanding of various evolutionary innovation and extinction events. Following a brief physiological primer to carbon acquisition and allocation in C3‐plants, specific evolutionary events are discussed in connection with postulated carbon‐based mechanisms. Primary topics include: (i) the evolution of plants with the C4‐photosynthetic pathway; (ii) the surprising lack of plant extinctions during the Pleistocene (1.6 million years ago, Ma); (iii) the trend toward declining plant diversity and increasing rates of herbivory across the Palaeocene/Eocene transition (57–52 Ma); and (iv) megaherbivore extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene (10 thousand years ago, Ka). A framework is presented for testing hypotheses on the cause–effect relationships between global carbon cycling, plant carbon dynamics and the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems.
TI - Plant carbon balance, evolutionary innovation and extinction in land plants
JF - Global Change Biology
DO - 10.1046/j.1365-2486.2001.00410.x
DA - 2001-03-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/plant-carbon-balance-evolutionary-innovation-and-extinction-in-land-duXsjp0KDT
SP - 231
VL - 7
IS - 3
DP - DeepDyve
ER -