A researcher from the Center for Marine and Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra participated in an international investigation that discovered a new flora of angiosperm plants in the Torres Vedras region.
According to the University of Coimbra (UC), in the field of research, a new flora of angiosperms (flowering plants) was discovered, collected from the Lower Cretaceous of Catefica, in Torres Vedras, in the Lisbon district.
This research work, published in the journal Fossil Imprint, with the title ‘The Early Cretaceous Mesofossil Flora of Catefica, Portugal: Angiosperms’, basically aims to relate the temporal evolution of the angiosperm flora to stratigraphic, environmental and climatic changes, taking into account into account for the characterization of paleoenvironments and paleoclimates”, said the UC in a statement sent this Monday to the Lusa news agency.
According to Mário Miguel Mendes, a researcher at the Center for Marine and Environmental Sciences (MARE) of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) and co-author of the study, “the scientists involved have trying to determine the linkscorrelating the floral organs preserved in the fossil record with current angiosperms, in the search for the establishment of evolutionary lines of the initial stages of the evolution of the group”.
“In this work, the combination of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with the non-destructive technique of synchrotron radiation X-ray microtomography (performed at the Paul Scherrer Institute, in Villigen, Switzerland) allowed perform detailed and thorough analyzes of fossil plants and the identification of 67 species of angiosperms. In fact, five new genera and six new species have been described to science, which is just extraordinary,” he said.
And he added: “The occurrence of staminate structures with ‘in situ’ pollen grains very similar to those produced by the current genera Ascarina and Hedyosmum (both attributable to the Chloranthaceae family) stands out in this flora.”
These male structures were described as a new genus and species: Proencistemon portugallicus gen. et sp. Nov”, described the researcher.
According to Mário Miguel Mendes, the new genus Proencistemon is dedicated to Pedro Proença e Cunha, tenured professor of the Department of Earth Sciences of the FCTUC, “for the important contributions he has made to the stratigraphy of the Portuguese Cretaceous”.
Angiosperms comprise some 230,000 species of modern flora and are essential for sustaining life on Earth.
“However, little is known about the conditions that will have governed the radiation and diversification of this very important group of plants that currently dominates terrestrial ecosystems,” the UC stressed in the note.
In the opinion of the MARE scientist from the FCTUC, studies of Cretaceous vegetation “are absolutely essential to understand the initial stages of development of flowering plants and to characterize the paleoenvironments and paleoclimates in which they lived”, with Portugal, in In global terms, “a region that meets excellent conditions for the study of this topic”.
Currently, we are dedicated to the study of all the ‘non-angiosperm’ flora of Catefica, namely ferns, conifers and plants of the BEG group (Bennetiales-Erdtmanithecales-Gnetales). The combination of all the results will make it possible to understand the conditions in which this flora developed”, he concluded.
The work, carried out in collaboration with researchers from Denmark, the United States, the Czech Republic and Sweden, received funding from the Swedish Research Council, the US National Science Foundation, the Czech Grants Agency and MARE/ARNET from the University of Coimbra. . .
Source: Observadora
