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The fossil history of flowering plants records the development of flowers and other distinctive structures of the angiosperms, now the dominant group of plants on land.The history is controversial as flowering plants appear in great diversity in the Cretaceous, with scanty and debatable records before that, creating a puzzle for evolutionary biologists that Charles Darwin named an "abominable ...
Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms, spread during this period, although they did not become predominant until near the end of the period (Campanian age). [18] Their evolution was aided by the appearance of bees; in fact angiosperms and insects are a good example of coevolution.
While the form of early trees was similar to that of today's, the Spermatophytes or seed plants, the group that contain all modern trees, had yet to evolve. The dominant tree groups today are all seed plants, the gymnosperms, which include the coniferous trees, and the angiosperms, which contain all fruiting and flowering trees.
However, angiosperms appear suddenly and in great diversity in the fossil record in the Early Cretaceous (~130 mya). [48] [49] Claimed records of flowering plants prior to this are not widely accepted. [50] Molecular evidence suggests that the ancestors of angiosperms diverged from the gymnosperms during the late Devonian, about 365 million ...
The Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution (abbreviated KTR), also known as the Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution (ATR) by authors who consider it to have lasted into the Palaeogene, [1] describes the intense floral diversification of flowering plants (angiosperms) and the coevolution of pollinating insects, as well as the subsequent faunal radiation of frugivorous, nectarivorous and insectivorous ...
Just two species of fern appear to have dominated the landscape for centuries after the event. [172] In the sediments below the K–Pg boundary the dominant plant remains are angiosperm pollen grains, but the boundary layer contains little pollen and is dominated by fern spores. [173] More usual pollen levels gradually resume above the boundary ...
During this time, the climate became warmer and wetter, and it is possible that angiosperms evolved to become stenotopic by this time, able to inhabit a narrow range of temperature and moisture; or, since the dominant floral ecosystem was a highly integrated and complex closed-canopy rainforest by the middle Paleocene, the plant ecosystems were ...
About 7600 species of plants use C 4 carbon fixation, which represents about 3% of all terrestrial species of plants. All these 7600 species are angiosperms. C 4 plants evolved carbon concentrating mechanisms. These work by increasing the concentration of CO 2 around RuBisCO, thereby facilitating photosynthesis and decreasing photorespiration.