Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution

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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 avians, mammals, lissamphibians, squamate reptiles and web-spinning spiders during the Middle to Late Cretaceous, from around 125 Mya to 80 Mya.[2] Alternatively, according to Michael Benton, the ATR is proposed to have lasted from 100 Ma, when the first highly diverse angiosperm leaf floras are known, to 50 Ma, during the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, by which point most crown lineages of angiosperms had evolved.[1]

Appearance of angiosperms[edit]

Molecular clock analyses of angiosperm evolution suggest that crown group angiosperms may have diverged up to 100 million years before the start of the KTR, although this is possibly due to artefacts of the inabilities of molecular clock estimates to account for explosive accelerations in evolution that may have caused the extremely fast diversification of angiosperms shortly after their first appearance in the fossil record.[3]

Causes[edit]

The KTR was enabled by the dispersed positions of the continents and the formation of new oceans during the Cretaceous in the aftermath of Pangaea's breakup in the preceding Jurassic period, which enhanced the hydrological cycle and promoted the expansion of temperate climatic zones, fuelling radiations of angiosperms.[4] Another cause of the explosive angiosperm diversification was the evolution of leaf vein densities greater than 2.5–5 mm/mm2, when the leaf interior transport path length of water became shorter than the leaf interior transport path length of CO2. This enabled greater utilisation of CO2 and gave an evolutionary advantage to flowering plants over conifers because they could sequester more CO2 for the same amount of water.[5] The much greater capacity of angiosperms for assimilating CO2 sharply increased global bioproductivity.[6]

Biotic effects[edit]

Before Lloyd et al.'s 2008 paper described the KTR, it had been widely accepted in paleontology that new families of dinosaurs evolved during the Middle to Late Cretaceous, including the euhadrosaurs, neoceratopsians, ankylosaurids, pachycephalosaurs, carcharodontosaurines, troodontids, dromaeosaurs and ornithomimosaurs. However, the authors of the paper have suggested that the apparent "new diversification" of dinosaurs during this time is due to sampling biases in the fossil record, and better preserved fossils in Cretaceous age sediments than in earlier Triassic or Jurassic sediments.[2] A comprehensive molecular study of evolution of mammals at the taxonomic level of family also showed important diversification during the KTR.[7] Mammals have been found to have decreased in disparity during the KTR.[8] Genetic evidence indicates a major radiation of phasmatodeans occurred during the KTR, likely in response to a coeval radiation of enantiornitheans and other visual predators.[9] Ants likewise underwent massive increase in diversity as part of the KTR.[10] Similarly, bee pollinator diversification strongly correlates with angiosperm flower appearance and specialization during the same era.[11] Among one lineage of sawflies, there was a change in preferred host plants amidst the biotic reorganisation of the KTR.[12] Not all insects were advantaged by this diversification and rearrangement of ecosystems; late-surviving eoblattodeans evolved long, slim bodies with long external ovipositors in response to the angiosperm radiation, but this proved to be an evolutionary dead end in the long run and the group went extinct.[13]

The KTR may have supercharged the contemporary Mesozoic Marine Revolution (MMR) by enhancing weathering and erosion, accelerating the flow of limiting nutrients into the world’s oceans.[14]

For nearly the entirety of Earth's history, including most of the Phanerozoic eon, marine species diversity exceeded terrestrial species diversity, a pattern which was reversed during the Middle Cretaceous as a result of the KTR in what has been termed a biological "great divergence", named after the historical Great Divergence.[15]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Benton, Michael James; Wilf, Peter; Sauquet, Hervé (26 October 2021). "The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution and the origins of modern biodiversity". New Phytologist. 233 (5): 2017–2035. doi:10.1111/nph.17822. hdl:1983/82a09075-31f4-423e-98b9-3bb2c215e04b. PMID 34699613. S2CID 240000207. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  2. ^ a b Lloyd, G. T.; et al. (2008). "Dinosaurs and the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution. 2008". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 275 (1650): 2483–2490. doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.0715. PMC 2603200. PMID 18647715.
  3. ^ Barba-Montoya, Jose; Dos Reis, Mario; Schneider, Harald; Donoghue, Philip C. J.; Yang, Ziheng (5 February 2018). "Constraining uncertainty in the timescale of angiosperm evolution and the veracity of a Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution". New Phytologist. 218 (2): 819–834. doi:10.1111/nph.15011. PMC 6055841. PMID 29399804.
  4. ^ Gurung, Khushboo; Field, Katie J.; Batterman, Sarah J.; Goddéris, Yves; Donnadieu, Yannick; Porada, Philipp; Taylor, Lyla L.; Mills, Benjamin J. W. (4 August 2022). "Climate windows of opportunity for plant expansion during the Phanerozoic". Nature Communications. 13 (1): 4530. Bibcode:2022NatCo..13.4530G. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32077-7. PMC 9352767. PMID 35927259.
  5. ^ de Boer, Hugo Jan; Eppinga, Maarten B.; Wassen, Martin J.; Dekker, Stefan C. (27 November 2012). "A critical transition in leaf evolution facilitated the Cretaceous angiosperm revolution". Nature Communications. 3 (1): 1221. Bibcode:2012NatCo...3.1221D. doi:10.1038/ncomms2217. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 3514505. PMID 23187621.
  6. ^ Boyce, C. Kevin; Zwieniecki, Maciej A. (26 June 2012). "Leaf fossil record suggests limited influence of atmospheric CO 2 on terrestrial productivity prior to angiosperm evolution". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 109 (26): 10403–10408. doi:10.1073/pnas.1203769109. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 3387114. PMID 22689947.
  7. ^ Meredith, Robert W. (2011). "Impacts of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution and KPg Extinction on Mammal Diversification". Science. 334 (6055): 521–524. Bibcode:2011Sci...334..521M. doi:10.1126/science.1211028. PMID 21940861. S2CID 38120449.
  8. ^ Grossnickle, David M.; Polly, P. David (22 November 2013). "Mammal disparity decreases during the Cretaceous angiosperm radiation". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 280 (1771): 20132110. doi:10.1098/rspb.2013.2110. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 3790494. PMID 24089340.
  9. ^ Tihelka, Erik; Cai, Chenyang; Giacomelli, Mattia; Pisani, Davide; Donoghue, Philip C. J. (11 November 2020). "Integrated phylogenomic and fossil evidence of stick and leaf insects (Phasmatodea) reveal a Permian–Triassic co-origination with insectivores". Royal Society Open Science. 7 (11): 201689. Bibcode:2020RSOS....701689T. doi:10.1098/rsos.201689. PMC 7735357. PMID 33391817.
  10. ^ Jouault, Corentin; Condamine, Fabien L.; Legendre, Frédéric; Perrichot, Vincent (11 March 2024). "The Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution buffered ants against extinction". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 121 (13). doi:10.1073/pnas.2317795121. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 38466878. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
  11. ^ Cardinal, S.; Straka, J.; Danforth, B. N. (2010). "Comprehensive phylogeny of apid bees reveals the evolutionary origins and antiquity of cleptoparasitism". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 107 (37): 16207–11. Bibcode:2010PNAS..10716207C. doi:10.1073/pnas.1006299107. PMC 2941306. PMID 20805492.
  12. ^ Schneider, Harald (28 January 2016). "The ghost of the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution in the evolution of fern–sawfly associations". Journal of Systematics and Evolution. 54 (2): 93–103. doi:10.1111/jse.12194. ISSN 1674-4918. Retrieved 11 May 2024 – via Wiley Online Library.
  13. ^ Li, Xin-Ran; Huang, Di-Ying (29 March 2023). "Atypical 'long-tailed' cockroaches arose during Cretaceous in response to angiosperm terrestrial revolution". PeerJ. 11: e15067. doi:10.7717/peerj.15067. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 10066690. PMID 37013144.
  14. ^ Boyce, C. Kevin; Lee, Jung-Eun (1 June 2011). "Could Land Plant Evolution Have Fed the Marine Revolution?". Paleontological Research. 15 (2): 100–105. doi:10.2517/1342-8144-15.2.100. ISSN 1342-8144. Retrieved 29 September 2023.
  15. ^ Vermeij, Geerat J.; Grosberg, Richard K. (2 July 2010). "The Great Divergence: When Did Diversity on Land Exceed That in the Sea?". Integrative and Comparative Biology. 50 (4): 675–682. doi:10.1093/icb/icq078. PMID 21558232. Retrieved 1 October 2022.


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