The Earliest Fleshy Cone of Ephedra from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Northeast China

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053652

	The Earliest Fleshy Cone of Ephedra from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Northeast China
	Yang, Yong; Wang, Qi
	2013
发表期刊	PLOS ONE
ISSN	1932-6203
卷号	8 期号:1
摘要	Bracts of female cones of extant gymnosperm Ephedra (Joint fir) are either colorful and fleshy (section Ephedra), or dry-winged and membranous (section Alatae), or dry and coriaceous (section Asarca), which have played a crucial role in long-distance seed dispersal that is responsible for a wide distribution of the genus in semiarid and arid areas of Eurasia, North Africa, North America, and South America. Recent molecular systematic studies on Ephedra have suggested that the fleshy bracts in character evolution may be plesiomorphic relative to the dry, membranous and coriaceous bracts. However, little is known about when the fleshy bracts of Ephedra have made their debut in the geological past. Herein, we describe a novel, fleshy bract-bearing female cone macrofossil from the Early Cretaceous (ca. 120-125 Ma) Yixian Formation in Liaoning, northeastern China. This cone bears three ellipsoid seeds subtended by only one whorl of fleshy bracts. Each seed has a thin outer envelope and an inner integument that extends upward and passes through the opening of the outer envelope, forming a thin and straight micropylar tube. Such a syndrome shows the closest similarity to an extant triovulate species Ephedra intermedia in the section Ephedra, but the latter bears a whorl of terminal fertile bracts and more than one whorl of inferior sterile bracts, and a thick outer envelope. Hence, we establish a new fossil species Ephedra carnosa. Our discovery provides the first direct macrofossil evidence for the previous molecular systematics of Ephedra, implying that the origin of fleshy bracts in Ephedra should not have been later than that of the membranous and coriaceous bracts by at least the Early Cretaceous.
学科领域	Multidisciplinary Sciences
DOI	10.1371/journal.pone.0053652
收录类别	SCI
语种	英语
WOS关键词	PHYLOGENETIC-RELATIONSHIPS ; GNETALES ; AGE ; CHLOROPLAST ; FOSSIL ; MORPHOLOGY ; ANGIOSPERM ; DISPERSAL ; DIVERSITY ; PORTUGAL
WOS研究方向	Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED)
WOS记录号	WOS:000314759400058
出版者	PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
文献子类	Article
出版地	SAN FRANCISCO
资助机构	National Natural Science Foundation of China(National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)) ; State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences(Chinese Academy of Sciences)
作者邮箱	Yang, Yong/S-1202-2019
作品OA属性	Green Published, gold, Green Accepted, Green Submitted
引用统计	被引频次：63[WOS] [WOS记录] [WOS相关记录]
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://ir.ibcas.ac.cn/handle/2S10CLM1/27868
专题	系统与进化植物学国家重点实验室
作者单位	Chinese Acad Sci, State Key Lab Systemat & Evolutionary Bot, Inst Bot, Beijing, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Yang, Yong,Wang, Qi. The Earliest Fleshy Cone of Ephedra from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Northeast China[J]. PLOS ONE,2013,8(1).
APA	Yang, Yong,&Wang, Qi.(2013).The Earliest Fleshy Cone of Ephedra from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Northeast China.PLOS ONE,8(1).
MLA	Yang, Yong,et al."The Earliest Fleshy Cone of Ephedra from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Northeast China".PLOS ONE 8.1(2013).

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