Disrupted growth in the wood of a Triassic trunk
    Annals of Botany

    New insights into the biology of high-latitude Mesozoic trees

    botanyone
    April 19, 2018
    1 min read

    The presence in the specimens of both epicormic shoots and traumatic growth zones, combined with the observation of some disorientation of the wood structure in some parts of the trunks, suggest that these trees were growing under more stressful conditions than previously described trees from the Fremouw Formation.

    The biology of extinct trees that grew in high-latitude forests during warmer geological periods is of major interest to understand past and future ecosystem dynamics. Decombeix et al. describe a detailed anatomical study of new fossil gymnosperms from the Triassic (ca. 240 my) of Antarctica.

    Disrupted growth in the wood of a Triassic trunk
    Disrupted growth in the wood of a Triassic (ca. 240 my) trunk from the Central Transantarctic Mountains. These new Antarctic fossils document the first co-occurrence of traumatic growth zones and epicormic shoots in an extinct plant, and provide new information on the biology of trees that grew in high-latitude forests under past greenhouse climates.

    The Triassic trees formed epicormic shoots and had traumatic growth zones in their wood indicating that they were subjected to environmental stresses not seen previously from this region. This study provides new insights into aspects of tree growth and response to disturbance in these warm high-latitude forests that have no equivalent today.

    FacebookTwitter

    botanyone

    The Annals of Botany Office is based at the University of Oxford.

    View all posts

    You may also like

    Read this in your language

    The Week in Botany

    On Monday mornings we send out a newsletter of the links that have been catching the attention of our readers on Twitter and beyond. You can sign up to receive it below.

    @BotanyOne on Mastodon

    Loading Mastodon feed...

    Audio


    Archive