When horsetails became giants  

作　　者：FENG Zhuo ZIEROLD Thofid ROβLER Ronny 

机构地区：[1]Museum fur Naturkunde,Chemnitz,Moritzstraβe 20,09111,Germany [2]Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology,Yunnan University,Kunming 650091,China

出　　处：《Chinese Science Bulletin》2012年第18期2285-2288,共4页

基　　金：partially founded by the Volkswagen Foundation(Az.:I/84638);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(40902006and41172009);the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education(20095301120003)

摘　　要：Horsetails arose in the Late Devonian,evolved a greater diversity and forming fast growing bamboo-like thickets in the Carboniferous lowland swamp forest ecosystems.However,the diversity of this group drastically declined during the Permian while the climate became more dynamic and arid.Today only a single surviving genus exists,the herbaceous Equisetum.Here we report an exceptional large horsetail tree from the Early Permian Petrified Forest of Chemnitz.This fossil horsetail tree is assigned to Arthropitys bistriata (Cotta) Goeppert.It is 15 m high and over 25 cm in diameter,with thick wood and at least 3 orders of woody branching system formed a big canopy,and is morphologically very comparable with the living woody higher plants.This suggests that the plasticity mechanism of Permian calamitaleans enabled novel growth strategies when they competed with the rising gymnosperms during the environmental changes.Horsetails arose in the Late Devonian, evolved a greater diversity and forming fast growing bamboo-like thickets in the Carbonif- erous lowland swamp forest ecosystems. However, the diversity of this group drastically declined during the Permian while the climate became more dynamic and arid. Today only a single surviving genus exists, the herbaceous Equisetum. Here we report an exceptional large horsetail tree from the Early Permian Petrified Forest of Chemnitz. This fossil horsetail tree is assigned to Ar- thropitys bistriata （Cotta） Goeppert. It is 15 m high and over 25 cm in diameter, with thick wood and at least 3 orders of woody branching system formed a big canopy, and is morphologically very comparable with the living woody higher plants. This sug- gests that the plasticity mechanism of Permian calamitaleans enabled novel growth strategies when they competed with the rising gymnosperms during the environmental changes.

关 键 词：木贼 森林生态系统 巨人 早二叠世 分支系统 植物形态 裸子植物 环境变化 

分 类 号：Q914[天文地球—古生物学与地层学]