Implications of an exceptional fossil flora for Late Cretaceous vegetation

Abstract

THE rapid radiation of angiosperms during the Late Cretaceous has been thought to reflect their rise to vegetational dominance^1–3. The number of species in a clade and its vegetational importance are not necessarily related, however. Quantitative studies of the recently discovered Big Cedar Ridge flora, found preserved in situ in a mid-Maastrichtian volcanic ash in central Wyoming, USA, reveal that dicotyledonous angiosperms accounted for 61% of the species but constituted just 12% of vegetational cover. Dicots, many of which appear to have been herbaceous, were abundant only in areas disturbed just before burial. By contrast, free-sporing plants were 19% of the species but 49% of cover. The only abundant and ubiquitous angiosperm was a single species of palm (about 25% of cover). A comparably low abundance of dicots was found in two other nearly contemporaneous floras buried by volcanic ash, whereas coeval floras from fluvial environments are dominated by dicots⁴. This shows that, even as late as the mid-Maastrichtian, in northern mid-latitudes there were areas away from streams that were not yet dominated by dicots. Despite vigorous taxonomic diversification during the previous 30 Myr³, dicots played a subordinate role in these areas of fern-dominated vegetation.