Systematics of Silurian Plant Remains

志留纪植物遗存系统学

• 批准号: 9007531
• 负责人: Paul Strother
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Trustees of Boston University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1990
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1990-10-15 至 1992-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9007531&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Systematics; Silurian; Plant; Remains

Land plants are diverse and abundant components of the Devonian fossil record, but they are barely represented in Silurian rocks. As a result, the emergence of plants onto dry land is poorly understood. Spores and fragmentary macrofossils have been recovered from Silurian rocks in the Welsh Borderlands and the northern Appalachians, but critical comparisons between these unique paleofloras have not yet been attempted. Dr. Paul Strother proposes an intensive collecting effort in Pennsylvania, followed by comparative analysis with Welsh material. Dr. Strother will use infrared imaging to isolate and analyze the cuticular plant remains that have been preserved in shales. The proposed research has the potential to contribute important new fossils to our meager understanding of early land plants. Dr. Strother's explorations and analysis will clarify the anatomy and ecology of these first land plants, and will help to illuminate their evolutionary relationships to younger fossil groups and to extant plants. His results will find a wide audience among botanists, paleoecologists, and evolutionary biologists in general.

陆地植物是泥盆纪化石记录中多样而丰富的组成部分，但它们在志留纪岩石中几乎没有代表。因此，人们对植物在旱地上的出现知之甚少。在威尔士边境和北方阿巴拉契亚山脉的志留纪岩石中发现了孢子和碎片宏化石，但尚未尝试对这些独特的古植物群进行关键比较。Paul Strother博士建议在宾夕法尼亚州进行密集的收集工作，然后与威尔士材料进行比较分析。斯特罗瑟博士将使用红外成像技术来分离和分析保存在页岩中的表皮植物遗骸。这项拟议中的研究有可能为我们对早期陆地植物的微薄理解贡献重要的新化石。斯特罗瑟博士的探索和分析将澄清这些第一批陆地植物的解剖学和生态学，并将有助于阐明它们与年轻化石群和现存植物的进化关系。他的研究结果将在植物学家、古生态学家和一般的进化生物学家中找到广泛的受众。