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Back to the Beginnings: The Silurian-Devonian as a Time of Major Innovation in Plants and Their Communities

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Nature through Time

Abstract

Massive changes in terrestrial paleoecology occurred during the Devonian. This period saw the evolution of both seed plants (e.g., Elkinsia and Moresnetia), fully laminate∗ leaves and wood. Wood evolved independently in different plant groups during the Middle Devonian (arborescent lycopsids, cladoxylopsids, and progymnosperms) resulting in the evolution of the tree habit at this time (Givetian, Gilboa forest, USA) and of various growth and architectural configurations. By the end of the Devonian, 30-m-tall trees were distributed worldwide. Prior to the appearance of a tree canopy habit, other early plant groups (trimerophytes) that colonized the planet’s landscapes were of smaller stature attaining heights of a few meters with a dense, three-dimensional array of thin lateral branches functioning as “leaves”. Laminate leaves, as we know them today, appeared, independently, at different times in the Devonian. In the Lower Devonian, trees were not present and plants were shrubby (e.g., Aglaophyton major), preserved in a fossilized community at the Rhynie chert locality in Scotland and other places. Many of these stem-group plants (i.e., preceding the differentiation of most modern lineages) were leafless and rootless, anchored to the substrate by rhizoids. The earliest land plant macrofossil remains date back to the Silurian, with the early Silurian Cooksonia barrandei from central Europe representing the earliest vascular plant known, to date. This plant had minute bifurcating aerial axes terminating in expanded sporangia. Dispersed microfossils (spores and phytodebris) in continental and coastal marine sediments provide the earliest evidence for land plants (= Embryophytes), which are first reported from the Early Ordovician.

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Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank the following colleagues, in alphabetical order, for images used as figures and in the accompanying lecture slides: Dr. Christopher Berry, Cardiff University, UK; Dr. Walter Cressler, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, USA; Dr. Jeffrey Doran, Canada; Prof. Dr. Hans Kerp, Universität Münster, Germany; Dr. Douglas Jensen, Converse College, Spartanburg, SC, USA; Prof. Stephen Scheckler, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University, Blacksburg, USA; Dr. William Stein, State University of New York-Binghamton, USA; Dr. Paul Strother, Boston College, USA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Patricia G. Gensel

  2. Department of Geology, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA

    Ian Glasspool & Robert A. Gastaldo

  3. National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic

    Milan Libertin & Jiří Kvaček

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  1. Patricia G. Gensel
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  2. Ian Glasspool
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Correspondence to Patricia G. Gensel .

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Edoardo Martinetto

  2. Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA

    Emanuel Tschopp

  3. Department of Geology, Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA

    Robert A. Gastaldo

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Gensel, P.G., Glasspool, I., Gastaldo, R.A., Libertin, M., Kvaček, J. (2020). Back to the Beginnings: The Silurian-Devonian as a Time of Major Innovation in Plants and Their Communities. In: Martinetto, E., Tschopp, E., Gastaldo, R.A. (eds) Nature through Time. Springer Textbooks in Earth Sciences, Geography and Environment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35058-1_15

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