A new method for quantifying plant evolution reveals that after the onset of early seed plants, complexity halted for 250 million years until the diversification of flowering plants about 100 million years ago.
A new study led by Stanford Earth's Andrew Leslie has found that rather than evolving gradually, land plants evolved in two dramatic bursts which occurred over 250 million years apart.
“It’s rare to get this many sporangia with well-preserved spores that you can measure,” said Andrew Leslie, referring to a new species of ancient plant. “We just kind of got lucky in how they were preserved.”
Researchers have discovered an ancient plant species whose reproductive biology captures the evolution from one to two spore sizes – an essential transition to the success of the seed and flowering plants we depend on.
