life Article Dynamics of Silurian Plants as Response to Climate Changes Josef Pšeniˇcka 1,* , Jiˇrí Bek 2, Jiˇrí Frýda 3,4, Viktor Žárský 2,5,6, Monika Uhlíˇrová 1,7 and Petr Štorch 2 1 Centre of Palaeobiodiversity, West Bohemian Museum in Pilsen, Kopeckého sady 2, 301 00 Plzeˇn,Czech Republic;
[email protected] 2 Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Palaeoecology, Geological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Rozvojová 269, 165 00 Prague 6, Czech Republic;
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[email protected] (P.Š.) 3 Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Praha 6, Czech Republic;
[email protected] 4 Czech Geological Survey, Klárov 3/131, 118 21 Prague 1, Czech Republic 5 Department of Experimental Plant Biology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Viniˇcná 5, 128 43 Prague 2, Czech Republic 6 Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, v. v. i., Rozvojová 263, 165 00 Prague 6, Czech Republic 7 Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Albertov 6, 128 43 Prague 2, Czech Republic * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +420-733-133-042 Abstract: The most ancient macroscopic plants fossils are Early Silurian cooksonioid sporophytes from the volcanic islands of the peri-Gondwanan palaeoregion (the Barrandian area, Prague Basin, Czech Republic). However, available palynological, phylogenetic and geological evidence indicates that the history of plant terrestrialization is much longer and it is recently accepted that land floras, producing different types of spores, already were established in the Ordovician Period.