Belowground Rhizomes in Paleosols: the Hidden Half of an Early Devonian Vascular Plant
Belowground rhizomes in paleosols: The hidden half of an Early Devonian vascular plant Jinzhuang Xuea,b,1, Zhenzhen Denga, Pu Huanga, Kangjun Huanga, Michael J. Bentonc, Ying Cuid, Deming Wanga, Jianbo Liua, Bing Shena, James F. Basingere, and Shougang Haoa aThe Key Laboratory of Orogenic Belts and Crustal Evolution, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, People’s Republic of China; bKey Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, People’s Republic of China; cSchool of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, United Kingdom; dDepartment of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755; and eDepartment of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E2, Canada Edited by Donald E. Canfield, Institute of Biology and Nordic Center for Earth Evolution, University of Southern Denmark, Odense M., Denmark, and approved June 28, 2016 (received for review March 28, 2016) The colonization of terrestrial environments by rooted vascular because of a poor fossil record, it remains quite unclear how the plants had far-reaching impacts on the Earth system. However, “hidden half” ecosystem (24), with buried structures growing in soils, the belowground structures of early vascular plants are rarely functioned during the early stage of vascular plant radiation. Such a documented, and thus the plant−soil interactions in early terres- knowledge gap hinders a deep understanding of the ecology of early trial ecosystems are poorly understood. Here we report the earli- plants and their roles in terrestrial environments. est rooted paleosols (fossil soils) in Asia from Early Devonian In this article, we report well-preserved plant traces from the deposits of Yunnan, China.
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