US-France Cooperative Research: Evolution of Early Seed Plants

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This award will support collaborative research between Dr. Jean Galtier and Dr. Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud, Universite des Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc, Montpellier, France, and Dr. Charles Beck, University of Michigan, Ann Arber and Dr. William Stein, State University of New York-Binghamton, centering the origin and early evolution of seed plants. These two research groups have access to especially large and important collections of some of the earliest known seed plants, members of the extinct Lower Carboniferous seed fern family, Calamopityaceae, from the New Albany Shale of the United States, and the Lydiennes Formation of the Montagne Noire of France. In the recent years, it has become increasingly clear that input from fossil early seed plants is essential for correctly inferring seed plant phylogeny. However, to be successful more comprehensive geological and geographic perspectives on calamopityacean and other early seed plant remains must be developed. This award will provide travel support to allow the investigators to integrate their research efforts in several areas including: i) detailed systematic analysis of very similar material described independently by the two groups, ii) a concerted effort to improve the methods by which information on these forms is collected, including development of morphometric analytical techniques for assessing homology in the primary vascular system, iii) development of plans for a comprehensive database on early seed plant remains suitable for a wide range of research problems, and iv) a phylogenetic analysis of seed plant origins concentrating on the fossil evidence of this group's early members.