No post-Cretaceous ecosystem depression in European forests? Rich insect-feeding damage on diverse middle Palaeocene plants, Menat, France
No post-Cretaceous ecosystem depression in European forests? Rich insect-feeding damage on diverse middle Palaeocene plants, Menat, France
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DOI：
10.1098/rspb.2009.1255
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发表时间：
2009-12
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
T. Wappler;E. Currano;P. Wilf;J. Rust;C. Labandeira
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文献类型：
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作者：
T. Wappler;E. Currano;P. Wilf;J. Rust;C. Labandeira
植食性昆虫被认为容易受到植物寄主的排斥。先前对美国西部内陆昆虫破坏的化石叶的研究表明，主要植物和昆虫食草动物在白垩纪-古近纪（K-T）边界灭绝。此外，区域植物-昆虫系统在整个古新世一直处于萧条或生态不平衡状态。白垩纪植物群具有很高的植物和昆虫取食多样性，而迄今为止所有古新世组合的植物、昆虫取食或两者的丰富度都很低。在这里，我们使用叶化石从中古新世Menat网站，法国，它有最古老的保存完好的叶组合从古新世的欧洲，测试所观察到的古新世美国模式的一般性。令人惊讶的是，Menat结合了高植物多样性和高昆虫活动，使其成为第一个观察到的“健康”的古新世植物-昆虫系统。此外，丰富和丰富的叶矿植物物种表明发达的主机专业化。梅纳特的植物-昆虫相互作用的多样性和复杂性表明，在距离墨西哥希克苏鲁布撞击地点较远的地方，K-T灭绝的净影响较小。沿着来自其他地区的可用数据，我们的研究结果表明，白垩纪末的事件并没有造成全球陆地生态系统的一致，持久的萧条。相反，它导致了不同区域的生态崩溃和恢复模式，这些模式似乎受到与希克苏鲁布结构距离的强烈影响。
Insect herbivores are considered vulnerable to extinctions of their plant hosts. Previous studies of insect-damaged fossil leaves in the US Western Interior showed major plant and insect herbivore extinction at the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–T) boundary. Further, the regional plant–insect system remained depressed or ecologically unbalanced throughout the Palaeocene. Whereas Cretaceous floras had high plant and insect-feeding diversity, all Palaeocene assemblages to date had low richness of plants, insect feeding or both. Here, we use leaf fossils from the middle Palaeocene Menat site, France, which has the oldest well-preserved leaf assemblage from the Palaeocene of Europe, to test the generality of the observed Palaeocene US pattern. Surprisingly, Menat combines high floral diversity with high insect activity, making it the first observation of a ‘healthy’ Palaeocene plant–insect system. Furthermore, rich and abundant leaf mines across plant species indicate well-developed host specialization. The diversity and complexity of plant–insect interactions at Menat suggest that the net effects of the K–T extinction were less at this greater distance from the Chicxulub, Mexico, impact site. Along with the available data from other regions, our results show that the end-Cretaceous event did not cause a uniform, long-lasting depression of global terrestrial ecosystems. Rather, it gave rise to varying regional patterns of ecological collapse and recovery that appear to have been strongly influenced by distance from the Chicxulub structure.