Collaborative Research: A Unique Window into the Ecology of Cretaceous Forests During the Rise of Angiosperms

开花植物最早出现在大约1.4亿年前的恐龙时代。开花植物迅速多样化并遍布全球，并进化出各种各样的生命形式，增加了森林生态的复杂性。这个项目通过研究一系列保存完好的新墨西哥州南部植物群化石来研究这个转变的关键时期，大约7500万年前，这些植物群存在于潮湿的热带古气候下。这些研究将为热带气候下的森林进化、开花植物生态扩张的时间和模式、恐龙和早期哺乳动物的栖息地以及北美西部内陆植被的历史提供重要的见解。本研究收集的植物化石大多是科学上的新物种，可以为现存谱系提供重要的历史记录。该项目为来自不同背景的学生提供培训。它还在教育和公众宣传方面有几项重大举措，包括为科学教师制定、测试和传播有关开花植物和现代森林兴起的课程计划。该项目将利用广泛的古生物实地研究、化石收集和新的定量技术，从树叶、木材、种子和果实化石中广泛重建坎帕尼亚晚期森林。这些研究将利用新开发的采样和分析技术，重建古森林的多样性和生态结构。化石区系来自新墨西哥州中南部麦克雷组的何塞溪段，位于西部内陆海道内陆200公里处。利用植物物种在景观中的空间分布来重建化石林的多样性和群落结构，通过测量植物的叶、木、种子/果实等反映生命形态、生理、生长速率和繁殖策略的特征来重建植物的功能生态。这些信息，当与气候相似的白垩纪、新生代和现存植物区系的分析相结合时，将被用来检验以下假设：1)坎帕尼亚区系的群落结构和主要分支的作用；2)白垩纪被子植物的功能生态学；③暖湿气候下森林生态结构如何随时间变化。所使用的基于功能特征的方法将连接现存和古生态学，并具有广泛的适用性，以理解生态辐射和关键进化创新后的群落更替。

Flowering plants first appeared approximately 140 million years ago, during the age of dinosaurs. Flowering plants rapidly diversified and spread around the globe and evolved a variety of life forms that added to the ecological complexity of forests. This project investigates a crucial interval of this transition, ~75 million years ago, by studying a series of exceptionally preserved fossil floras from southern New Mexico, which existed under a wet tropical paleoclimate. These studies will provide important insights into forest evolution in tropical climates, the timing and patterns of ecological expansion of flowering plants, the habitats of dinosaurs and early mammals, and the history of vegetation for the western interior of North America. Most of these plant fossils collected this research represent species new to science and can provide important historical records for living lineages. The project provides training for students from diverse backgrounds. It also has several major initiatives for education and public outreach, including the development, testing, and dissemination of lesson plans for science teachers about the rise of flowering plants and modern forests. This project will use extensive paleontological field studies, fossil collections, and new quantitative techniques to generate extensive reconstructions of late Campanian forests from fossilized leaves, wood, seeds and fruits. By using newly developed sampling and analytical techniques, these studies will generate reconstructions of the diversity and ecological structure of the paleo forests. The fossil floras are from the Jose Creek Member of the McRae Formation in south-central New Mexico, which was located 200 km inland of the Western Interior Seaway. The diversity and community structure of the fossil forests will be reconstructed using spatial distributions of plant species across the landscape, while the functional ecology of the plants will be reconstructed by measuring traits of leaves, wood, and seeds/fruits that are reflective of life form, physiology, growth rate, and reproductive strategy. This information, when combined with analyses of climatically similar Cretaceous, Cenozoic, and extant floras, will be used to test hypotheses about: 1) the community structure and roles of major clades in Campanian floras; 2) the functional ecology of Cretaceous angiosperms; and 3) how the ecological structure of forests has changed through time in warm-wet climates. The functional trait-based approach used will link extant and paleo-ecology, and have broad applicability to understanding ecological radiations and community turnover following key evolutionary innovations.