Home / Ecology & Palaeoenvironment / Stress Conditions in Recent and Fossil Plants

L. Azevedo-Schmidt et al. (2024): Ferns as facilitators of community recovery following biotic upheaval. Open access, BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biae022.
! Note figure 1: Time-calibrated fern phylogeny [shows additionally major extinction events with and without fern spike].
See also here.
"... The competitive success of ferns has been foundational to hypotheses about terrestrial recolonization following biotic upheaval, from wildfires to the Cretaceous–Paleogene asteroid impact (66 million years ago). Rapid fern recolonization in primary successional environments has been hypothesized to be driven by ferns’ high spore production and wind dispersal
[...] We propose that a competition-based view of ferns is outdated and in need of reexamination ..."

R.S. Baucom et al. (2020): Plant–environment interactions from the lens of plant stress, reproduction, and mutualisms. Open access, American Journal of Botany, 107: 175–178.

! J.P. Benca et al. (2018): UV-B–induced forest sterility: Implications of ozone shield failure in Earth’s largest extinction. In PDF, Sci. Adv., 4. See also here.
See also there:
"Increased UV from ozone depletion sterilizes trees", by Robert Sanders, Berkeley News.

A. Channing and D. Edwards (2009): Yellowstone hot spring environments and the palaeoecophysiology of Rhynie chert plants: towards a synthesis. In PDF, Plant Ecology & Diversity. See also here.

J.M. Cheeseman (2015): The evolution of halophytes, glycophytes and crops, and its implications for food security under saline conditions. New Phytologist, 206: 557–570.

M. D'Ario et al. (2023): Hidden functional complexity in the flora of an early land ecosystem. Free access, New Phytologist, doi: 10.1111/nph.19228.
"... Our approach highlights the impact of sporangia morphology on spore dispersal and adaptation
We discovered previously unidentified innovations among early land plants, discussing how different species might have opted for different spore dispersal strategies ..."

A.-L. Decombeix et al. (2011): Root suckering in a Triassic conifer from Antarctica: Paleoecological and evolutionary implications. In PDF, American Journal of Botany, 98: 1222-1225. See also here (abstract).

W.A. DiMichele et al. (2004): Long-term stasis in ecological assemblages: evidence from the fossil record. PDF file, Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst., 35: 285-322. This expired link is available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

W.A. DiMichele (1994): Ecological patterns in time and space. PDF file, Paleobiology, 20: 89-92.
See also here.

! W.A. DiMichele et al. (1987): Opportunistic evolution: abiotic environmental stress and the fossil record of plants. PDF file, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 50: 151-178.
See also here.

C. Elliott-Kingston et al. (2014): Damage structures in leaf epidermis and cuticle as an indicator of elevated atmospheric sulphur dioxide in early Mesozoic floras. In PDF, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 208: 25-42.

N.C. Emery et al. (2001): Competition and salt-marsh plant zonation: stress tolerators may be dominant competitors. PDF file, Ecology, 82: 471-2485.
See also here.

M.-J. Endara et al. (2023): The Evolutionary Ecology of Plant Chemical Defenses: From Molecules to Communities. Open access, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 54: 107-127.
"... we summarize current trends in the study of plant–herbivore interactions and how they shape the evolution of plant chemical defenses, host choice, and community composition and diversity
[...] On an evolutionary timescale, host choice by herbivores is largely determined by plant defenses rather than host phylogeny, leading to evolutionary tracking by herbivores rather than cocladogenesis ..."

T.J. Flowers et al. (2010): Evolution of halophytes: multiple origins of salt tolerance in land plants. PDF file, Functional Plant Biology, 37: 604-612. Snapshot taken by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

C.B. Foster and S.A. Afonin (2005): Abnormal pollen grains: an outcome of deteriorating atmospheric conditions around the Permian-Triassic boundary. In PDF,, Journal of the Geological Society, 162(4): 653-659.
See also here.

M. Haworth et al. (2014): On the reconstruction of plant photosynthetic and stress physiology across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. In PDF, Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences, 23: 321-329.

! M. He et al. (2018): Abiotic Stresses: General Defenses of Land Plants and Chances for Engineering Multistress Tolerance. Free access, Front. Plant Sci., 9.
! Note fgure 1: The general defense systems and the underlying regulatory network in botanic responses to abiotic stresses.

Heribert Hirt (ed., 2009): Plant Stress Biology: From Genomics to Systems Biology. Book announcement. See also here

R.B. Huey et al. (2002): Plants versus animals: do they deal with stress in different ways? PDF file, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 42: 415-423. See also here.

C.E. Husby et al. (2011): Salinity tolerance ecophysiology of Equisetum giganteum in South America: a study of 11 sites providing a natural gradient of salinity stress. Open access, AoB PLANTS.

! A.H. Knoll and K.J. Niklas (1987): Adaptation, plant evolution, and the fossil record. Free access, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 50: 127-149.

E.A. Kravets et al. (2023): UV-B Stress and Plant Sexual Reproduction. In PDF, UV-B Radiation and Crop Growth, pp 293–317.
See also here.

S. Lev-Yadun (2016): Plants are not sitting ducks waiting for herbivores to eat them. In PDF, Plant Signaling & Behavior, 11. See also here.

S. Lindström et al. (2015): Evidence of volcanic induced environmental stress during the end-Triassic event. Abstract.

F. Liu et al. (2023): Dying in the Sun: Direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction. Free access, Science Advances, 9. See also:
UV-B-Strahlung trug zu Massenexitus bei (by A. Doerfel, Spektrum.de, in German).
A.W.R. Seddon and B. Zimmermann (2023): Comment on “Dying in the Sun: Direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction”. Free access, Science Advances, 9.
P.E. Jardine et al. (2023): Response to Comment on “Dying in the Sun: Direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction”. Free access, Science Advances, 9.

. T. Masselter and T. Speck (2014): Secondary growth stresses in recent and fossil plants: Physical/mathematical modelling and experimental validation. Abstract, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 201: 47-55.
"... the stresses in the once living tissues of fossil plants cannot be measured experimentally. To overcome this problem, we present a mathematical/physical model that allows for calculating the magnitude of tissues stresses in rather small bodied centri-symmetric woody fossil plant stems ..."

US Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument:
Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
Life Returns: Animal and Plant Recovery Around the Volcano.
Websites outdated. Links lead to versions archived by the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

John Kiogora Mworia (ed., 2012): Botany. 236 pages, InTech. The first section of the book includes contributions on responses to flood stress, tolerance to drought and desiccation, see e.g.:
Flooding Stress on Plants: Anatomical, Morphological and Physiological Responses. (PDF file, by G.G. Striker).

J.D. Napier and M.L. Chipman (2022): Emerging palaeoecological frameworks for elucidating plant dynamics in response to fire and other disturbance. Free access, Global Ecology and Biogeography, 31: 138–154.
"... we highlight emerging opportunities in palaeoecology to advance our understanding about how disturbance, especially fire, impacts the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of terrestrial plant communities.
[...] apply “functional palaeoecology” and the synergy between palaeoecology and genetics to understand how fire disturbance has served as a long-standing selective agent on plants ..."

! NASA Astrobiology Institute:
What are Microbial Mats? Still available via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
What are Stromatolites?
See also: Microbial Mats Offer Clues To Life on Early Earth. Worth checking out:
! Life in the Extremes.

! K.J. Niklas (2023): Deciphering the hidden complexity of early land plant reproduction. Free access, New Phytologist.

! M.C. Press and G.K. Phoenix (2005): Impacts of parasitic plants on natural communities. Free access, New Phytologist, 166: 737–751.

Ismail Md. Mofizur Rahman, Zinnat Ara Begum and Hiroshi Hasegawa (eds., 2016): Water Stress in Plants. The edited compilation is an attempt to provide new insights into the mechanism and adaptation aspects of water stress in plants through a thoughtful mixture of viewpoints. Open access, by InTech. Chapters published August 24, 2016 under CC BY 3.0 license.

Thomas Rausch, Botanisches Institut, Heidelberg: Wenn Pflanzen in Streß geraten (in German).

J. Read and A. Stokes (2006): Plant biomechanics in an ecological context. Free access, American Journal of Botany, 93: 1546-1565.

R. Rellán-Álvarez et al. (2016): Environmental control of root system biology. In PDF, Annual Reviews Plant Biology, 67: 1–26.

R.J. Rodriguez et al. (2008): Stress tolerance in plants via habitat-adapted symbiosis. PDF file, The ISME Journal, 2: 404-416.

Rusty Rodriguez and Regina Redman (2008): More than 400 million years of evolution and some plants still can't make it on their own: plant stress tolerance via fungal symbiosis. PDF file, Journal of Experimental Botany.
This expired link is available through the Internet Archive´s Wayback Machine.

Nick Rowe and Thomas Speck (2005): Plant growth forms: an ecological and evolutionary perspective. PDF file, New Phytologist, 166: 61-72. See also here.

D.L. Royer et al. (2009): Ecology of leaf teeth: A multi-site analysis from an Australian subtropical rainforest. PDF file, American Journal of Botany, 96: 738–750.

D.L. Royer et al. (2001): Paleobotanical Evidence for Near Present-Day Levels of Atmospheric CO₂ During Part of the Tertiary. PDF file, Science, 292: 2310.

Science Daily: The Benefits of Stress ... in Plants, and Plants And Stress: Key Players On The Thin Line Between Life And Death Revealed.

! V. Vajda et al. (2023): The ‘seed-fern’ Lepidopteris mass-produced the abnormal pollen Ricciisporites during the end-Triassic biotic crisis. Free access, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 627.
Note figure 4: Microsporophyll Antevsia zeilleri and microsporangia (pollen sacs) with contained pollen linked to the Lepidopteris ottonis plant.
! Figure 10C: Reconstruction of branch of male plant with short shoots bearing Lepidopteris ottonis foliage and Antevsia zeilleri microsporophylls.
"... We show that R. tuberculatus is a large, abnormal form of the small smooth-walled monosulcate pollen traditionally associated with L. ottonis, which disappeared at the ETE [end-Triassic mass extinction], when volcanism induced cold-spells followed by global warming. We argue that the production of aberrant R. tuberculatus resulted from ecological pressure in stressed environments that favoured asexual reproduction in peltasperms ..."

C. Vázquez-González et al. 2020): Resin ducts as resistance traits in conifers: linking dendrochronology and resin-based defences. Free access, Tree Physiology, 40 :1313–1326.

G.J. Vermeij (2016): Plant defences on land and in water: why are they so different? Open access, Annals of Botany, 117: 1099–1109.

P. Wilf et al. (2023): The end-Cretaceous plant extinction: Heterogeneity, ecosystem transformation, and insights for the future. Open access, Cambridge Prisms: Extinction, 1, e14, 1–10.

J.P. Wilson et al. (2023): Physiological selectivity and plant–environment feedbacks during Middle and Late Pennsylvanian plant community transitions. Open access, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 535: 361-382.
"... We find that three Pennsylvanian plant lineages – the medullosans, arborescent lycopsids and Sphenophyllum – contain high hydraulic conductivity but are vulnerable to drought-induced damage, whereas others are resistant, including stem group tree ferns and coniferophytes ..."

! J. Wu et al. (2022): Physiology of plant responses to water stress and related genes: A Review. Open access, Forests, 13.
Note figure 1: Changes to the morphological and anatomical structure of plant leaves and roots due to water stress.

! T.H. Yeats and J.K.C. Rose (2013): The formation and function of plant cuticles. In PDF, Plant physiology, 163: 5–20. See also here.

N. Zavialova (2024): Comment on “The ‘seed-fern’ Lepidopteris mass-produced the abnormal pollen Ricciisporites during the end-Triassic biotic crisis” by V. Vajda, S. McLoughlin, S. M. Slater, O. Gustafsson, and A. G. Rasmusson [Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 627 (2023), 111,723]. Abstract, Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 322.
"... Recently, Ricciisporites Lundblad and Cycadopites Wodehouse (= Monosulcites Cookson) pollen types have been found cooccurring in Antevsia zeilleri
[...] the two pollen types are too dissimilar by their exine ultrastructure as well as by the general morphology and exine sculpture.
[...] Another explanation should be found for the presence of Ricciisporites tetrads in these pollen sacs ..."