The 27th Midcontinent Paleobotany Colloquium (MPC)
May 28-30, 2010
Frostburg State University
All activities will be on the Third Floor in Compton Science Center in Compton Hall (CH)
Date
Time
Location Activities
Fri. 5/28
300-500 pm
Lobby
Registration
500-630 pm
Lobby
Reception - Welcome Remark by Dean Dr. Joe Hoffman
630 -
Participant may like to walk to Frostburg for food, movie, or visit
some historical site, e.g., art store, the train station deport, etc.
Lodging
Cambridge Hall.
Sat. 5/29 730-830 am
CH 358
Country-Style Breakfast
830-100 am
CH 327
Presentations:
1. Jud & Thomas – Revisiting Lepidodendron
2. Gensel - Something Devonian
3. Wheeler et al. - Is it Altingiaceae, or …?
4. Locklear & Mickle - Taxodium seeds of Pleisotcene
1000-1030 am
CH358
Posters and Break
1030-1200 pm CH 327
1200-130 pm
CH358
130-245 pm
CH328
245-300 pm
CH358
Presentations:
5. David Nelson - δ13C analysis of single grass-pollen
6. Simpson & Wing - Testing Tiffney & Mazer
7. Phillip Allen - EcoCount
Lunch
Fossil display and Presentations:
8. Elliot Weidow - Is it an Ephedra species?
9. Hongqi Li – Enigmatic early angiosperms and
gigantopterids
Break
300-530 pm
CH129
Demonstration of Low VA mode of SEM
Or visit Discovery Center (1st Floor), department & campus tour.
Banquet in Dean’s Conference Room with a guest talk,
"Contrasting the trees of life and death in the
resolution of embryophyte phylogeny" by Dr. Gar W.
Rothwell.
530-730 pm
CH237
Lodging
Cambridge Hall.
Sun. 5/30 800 am
Meet at FSU Police Department for Field Trip, and return in about
2-3 hours. A lunch box will be provided for your brunch.
Contact Hongqi Li by Email [email protected], Office Phone: 301-687-4168 (in CH 306),
or Cellular Phone 301-377-4828 (during Conference ONLY)
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Revisiting a historically important plant fossil collection: implications for the taxonomy
and biogeography of Lepidodendron in Eastern North America
Nathan A Jud* and Barry A Thomas†
*Program in Behavior Ecology Evolution and Systematics. University of
Maryland College Park, MD, USA http://www.bees.umd.edu/students/jud.html
†Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales
Abstracts: In 1892 plants fossils previously acquired by Mr. R.D. Lacoe of Pittston, PA were
donated to the Smithsonian NMNH. At the time, the collection was among the largest collections
of fossil plants in North America. Most of these specimens were identified by Leo Lesquereux
and many were figured in his famous work “Description of the Coal Flora of the Carboniferous
Formation in Pennsylvania and the United States” published between 1880 and 1884. Some of
the documentation and log books associated with this collection have been lost, and as a result
this important and historical collection is underutilized. Now, the Pennsylvanian specimens are
being cleaned and organized, and information on specimen labels is being recorded in a database
so that taxonomic, stratigraphic, and locality data are made available for future use in
paleobotanical research. Here, present a summary of the Laceo's Pennsylvanian plant fossil
collection and the results of our analysis of the diversity of Lepidodendron in the collection.
Lepidodendron is a genus of arborescent lycopsids that was common across North America and
Europe in the Pennsylvanian. The taxonomy of species found in the Lacoe collection is updated,
and the distribution of the various species across Lacoe’s plant fossil localities is discussed.
These data will be compared with similar data gathered across Europe. Similar research on other
plant groups found in the collection is becoming possible and Lacoe’s contribution to
paleobotany is still being realized, almost 120 years after his donation to the Smithsonian.
********************
Something Devonian: spore ultrastructure of early Lycophytes
Patricia G. Gensel
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, C. H. Wellman, University of Sheffield, UK, and W.
A. Taylor, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
As part of a larger study of spore ultrastructure of early vascular plants in order to determine if
there are distinctive features unique to major taxa or groups of plants as well as putative
evolutionary trends, the ultrastructure of spores obtained from sporangia of three Early
Devonian plants representing members of the Lycophytina . Two stem group taxa,
Renalia hueberi and Zosterophyllum divaricatum , and the protolepidodendrid Leclercqia, have
been or are being studied. Basic features of spore walls in these taxa are described and
compared to what is known among extant lycopsida, and other plant groups. Spores are
unavailable for study from the early lycophytes Baragwanathia or Drepanophycus. Dispersed
spores of unknown affinity, Emphanisporites, also shows some lycopsid features, but also
characters typical of other plant groups.
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Is it Altingiaceae, Hamamelidaceae, Daphniphyllaceae, or Cercidiphyllaceae?
Elisabeth A. Wheeler1), Sung Jae Lee2) & Pieter Baas3)
1)
Department of Wood and Paper Science, North Carolina State University,
Raleigh, N.C. 27695-8005, U.S.A. ([email protected])
2)
Gangwon Forest Development Research Institute, 200-140 Chunchon, S. Korea
3)
National Centre for Biodiveristy Naturalis – National Herbarium of the
Netherlands, P.O. Box 9514, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
Abstracts: There are fossil woods from the late Cretaceous of California (V.M. Page
collections), early middle Eocene of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (R.A. Scott
collections, Yamamoto and Chadwick collections), and late Eocene of Post, Oregon (S.R.
Manchester collections), with the wood anatomical pattern of predominantly solitary vessels that
are narrow and numerous, scalariform perforation plates, opposite – scalariform intervessel
pitting, non-septate fibers with distinctly bordered pits, and narrow heterocellular rays. This
pattern occurs in the Saxifragalean families: Altingiaceae, Hamamelidaceae, Daphniphyllaceae,
and Cercidiphyllaceae. Some families outside the Saxifragales also have this combination of
features (e.g., Adoxaceae, Caprifoliaceae, Cornaceae, Cunoniaceae, Ericaceae, Illiciaceae,
Myricaceae, Pentaphylacaceae, Symplocaceae, Theaceae).
Axial parenchyma abundance,
vessel-ray parenchyma pitting, ray structure, and crystal location allow distinguishing some taxa.
The Hancock Tree of the John Day Fossil Beds National monument has characteristics of the
Exbucklandoideae (Hamamelidaceae). A late Eocene wood from near Post, Oregon has
characteristics seen in Loropetalum and Hamamelis. Woods from Yellowstone previously
assigned to Liquidambar are not.
********************
Fossil Taxodium seeds of Pleisotcene age from southeastern North Carolina
Locklear, Jared R. and James E. Mickle
Department of Plant Biology 2115 Gardner Hall Box 7612 North Carolina State
University Raleigh, NC 27695
Abstract: A recently discovered locality in an open aggregate mine pit near Wilmington, North
Carolina, has produced abundant macrofossil remains that show a wide range of diversity. The
material is preserved in loose clay and was recovered from the spoil heap. The exact
environmental setting is uncertain, but appears to be channel fill or lacustrine deposit.
Palynological analysis suggests a Pleistocene age. Macrofossil specimens were recovered by
maceration and include abundant well preserved seeds, fruit, flowers, conifer and angiosperm
wood, cones, and insect fossils. Plant fossils and include cf. Fagus, Pinus, Quercus, and Vitus. A
dominant seed type in the fossil flora is Taxodium, based on key characteristics such as overall
size, raised marginal features, and lack of wings. Comparisons with other species in the genus
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suggest that this fossil species of Taxodium may be a new species. Little is known of the
Pleistocene macrofossil flora of the Southeastern United States; study of this locality will add to
our knowledge of this time period in this region.
********************
δ13C analysis of single grass-pollen grains: a new tool for investigating the ecology and
evolution of C4 grasses in paleorecords
David M. Nelson
Unversity of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Appalachian
Laboratory, Frostburg, MD 21532
Abstracts: C4 grasses account for >20% of global primary productivity and dominate tropical,
subtropical, and warm-temperate grassland ecosystems. In comparison with C3 grasses they
differ greatly in their responses to environmental controls and in their influences on
biogeochemical processes (e.g. water, carbon, and nutrient cycling). However, difficulties in
distinguishing between these two functional groups of grasses have hindered studies of past
grasslands. I this talk I will demonstrate that stable carbon isotopic analysis of individual grains
of grass pollen (which are morphologically indistinct) using a spooling-wire microcombustion
device interfaced with an isotope-ratio mass spectrometer holds promise for distinguishing C3
and C4 grasses and thus advancing our understanding of grassland ecology and evolution. First, a
high percentage (~87%) of individual pollen grains from modern C3 grasses and C4 grasses can
be distinguished using an empirically derived cutoff threshold of -19.2‰, where values more
negative than the threshold are classified as C3 and values more positive as C4. Second, a surfacesediment calibration using 10 lakes in areas that span a large gradient of C3- and C4-grass
abundance indicates a strong positive correlation between the δ13C-based estimates of % C4grass pollen (determined using the -19.2‰ threshold) and the abundance of C4 grasses on the
landscape. Advantages of this technique over other δ13C-based approaches to estimating past
C3/C4 proportions include lower sample size requirements, avoidance of mixing models, and
specificity to the grass family. I will conclude with an application of this technique to grass
pollen from middle Miocene-early Oligocene sediments from Europe. Results suggest that C4
grasses occurred as early as the earliest Oligocene, ~16 million years earlier than previous
isotopic evidence of first C4 plants and before pCO2 fell to near pre-industrial levels by the
Miocene/Oligocene boundary, the putative driver of C4 origination. Future studies using this
technique will help to further pinpoint the timing and controls of C4 evolution and to address
longstanding paleoecological questions about climate-vegetation-grazer relationships in
grassland ecosystems.
********************
Testing Tiffney & Mazer: animal dispersal and biodiversity in the Rosales
Andrew “Andy” Simpson (1,2) and Scott Wing (2)
1 Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, University of Maryland, College Park
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2 Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
Abstracts: Many authors have proposed animal dispersal as a driving factor influencing
diversification and extinction in various plant groups, including both angiosperms (Tiffney &
Mazer) and gymnosperms (Simpson & Tiffney). Heretofore, most of the work that has been done
examining this relationship has been either not phylogenetically explicit (aforementioned), or
else in a group possessing a limited fossil record (Eriksson et al on the Rubiaceae), or has had
limited discussion of plausible causal mechanisms for observed relationships.
Here we report a preliminary test of the relationship between dispersal and diversity mediated via
biogeography using the Rosales, a group with an excellent fossil record. Fruit type and size were
scored from herbarium specimens; phylogenies were assumed from Potter et al and from
Angiosperm Phylogeny Group III. Initial findings suggest that woody Rosalean clades
possessing animal dispersal are more widespread and more diverse than their sister clades, but
that this pattern does not hold for wind-dispersed groups or for herbaceous clades. Incorporation
of further data and analysis is ongoing.
********************
EcoCount – An electronic solution to an old issue
Phillip Allen
Department of Geography, Frostburg State University, 101 Braddock Rd.,
Frostburg, Maryland 21532-1099, USA
Abstracts: Many palaeoecological research techniques, including pollen, diatom, testate amoeba
and foraminifera analyse are very time consuming. Adding to the time demand is inefficient data
recording via paper count sheets. Further, time is lost via manually transferring the data from the
paper count sheet into a spreadsheet or directly into computer programs such as Tilia or TGView.
The EcoCount program is a versatile piece of software that can be modified to any individual
researcher needs to electronically record data from almost any counted palaeoecological proxy.
The EcoCount program operates on a simple spreadsheet format, with each taxa listed in
individual cells. These cells can be included or excluded from the total count via a tickbox. The
data is recorded via voice recognition, thus removing the need for the researcher to look away
from their microscope field of view. The electronic count sheet is saved as a *txt file, which can
be opened in Excel, which can then be opened in TGView. The advantage of using the
EcoCount program is that digital copies of the data are concurrently produced whilst counting,
and therefore make the operation of data input from paper count sheets redundant. EcoCount
was designed with pollen analysis in mind; however, due to the ease of entering
taxonomic/specific names into the cells, the program can be adapted for any type of counting
analysis. A free download of EcoCount can be found at www.dynamicasolutions.co.uk
5
Is It A Fossil Ephedrophyte?
Elliot Weidow and Hongqi Li, Department of Biology, Frostburg State University
Abstracts: One part and counterpart of a fossil plant have been Found from the Yixian
Formation, Lower Cretaceous, at Dawangzhangzi, in Lingyuan County, western Liaoning
Provice, China. The plant has naked stem/branches with rare leaves that are nearly
unrecognizable. The most striking feature is their reproductive organs that look similar to the
seeds of Ephedra, in having bracteole-like structures and possible, protruded micropyle tubes.
However, they are arranged into two-three wheels that is not seen in modern Ephedra species.
More characteristics are needed to determine the nature of the fossil plants.
********************
Enigmatic Early Angiosperms and Gigantopterids
Hongqi Li, Department of Biology, Frostburg State University
Abstracts: I will show my fossil collections of some early angiosperm plants (or possible
angiosperm plants) or Mesozoic from China and Permian Gigantopterids, with a presentation
showing my research progress on these material. I am looking forward to hearing some insight
opinions and suggestions.
********************
POSTER – 1 Cuticular micromorphology of leaf remains from the Eocene of East Central
Georgia
Authors: Michelle Sclavani and James E. Mickle
Department of Plant Biology, North Carolina State University, Box 7612, Raleigh, NC 27695
Abstract: Leaf remains have been recovered from Huber Formation sediments of Paleogene
(presumably Eocene) age uncovered at the Shepherd Mine of the EEC kaolin mining company
near Deepstep in east-central Georgia. These sediments are considered to be part of the Huber
Formation. Abundant plant remains were recovered from dark kaolinite-rich channel-fill
deposits. Reflected light microscopy at a low angle revealed venation patterns. Cuticle was
isolated with 20% Cr2O3; whole leaf remains and isolated cuticles were studied under SEM to
reveal micromorpholgical features. The fragment is the distal portion of the leaf and is 6.4 cm
long by at least 4.4 cm wide. The leaf margin in entire and tip acute. Venation is
brochidodromous. Adaxial cuticle outer surface is smooth and lacks stomata or other features;
interior views reveal isodiametic cells. Abaxial cuticle shows an exterior surface of smooth
cuticle with slightly sunken stomatal openings measuring 15 µm long X 12 µm wide; interior
surfaces are finely granular. Epidermal cells are isodiametric. Stomatal complexes are paracytic,
measure 36 µm X24 µm and are not contiguous. A thick, broad, flat flange extends between the
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guard cells; the flange between the guard and subsidiary cells is low and thin. Cuticle associated
with subsidiary cells is finely pitted. The leaf fragment studied is similar to those reported as
Diospyros wilcoxiana by Berry in 1930 from the Wilcox Formation in Tennessee. This study
provides previously undocumented information about the cuticular micromorphological features
of this leaf form.
********************
POSTER – 2 Teaching Paleontology—Paleobotany Should Be Involved
Martin B. Farley, [email protected], Dept. of Geology & Geography, University of North
Carolina at Pembroke, Pembroke, NC 28372.
Abstracts: A workshop on “Teaching Paleontology” was held at Cornell in July 2009
organized by On the Cutting Edge, an NSF-funded program in geoscience education
headquartered at Carleton College. Attendance was dominated by invertebrate paleontologists
while paleobotanists sensu lato accounted for only 5% of the participants (2 palynologists, 1
megafossil paleobotanist).
Among other workshop elements, participants contributed
descriptions of teaching activities in paleontology from the introductory to the upper
undergraduate level. The only paleobotanical activities contributed concerned palynology, mine
using David Frey’s Quaternary work from Carolina Bays near UNC-Pembroke and a longer
Quaternary record from western North America contributed by a paleoecologist at Boise State.
It is important to expose students, even geology undergraduates, to fossil plants and how
they can be used to address important scientific problems. A major hurdle is that most faculty
teaching paleontology courses don’t know any specifics about fossil plants. In some geology
departments these days, the paleontology instructor may not even be a paleontologist. This
makes it difficult for paleobotany to be included.
Teaching activities can be specimen-based; information on these can be useful inspiration
to others even if they don't have your collection. Other activities involve analysis of datasets not
dependent on specimens. These are particularly valuable for people teaching without extensive
paleobotanical
collections.
The
workshop
website
(http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/paleo/activities.html) collects the contributed
exercises from the workshop on such topics as field techniques, phylogeny and systematics,
extinction, mathematical models, biostratigraphy, and paleoecology.
I'll show my activity based on Frey's work as an example of a data-based activity. My
adaptation of Frey’s work shows how well a local, fairly simple dataset can be used at a variety
of levels in undergraduate teaching. An advantage of this exercise is that it demonstrates the
significant impact of Ice Age changes in a never-glaciated area where students believe there
couldn’t have been much effect of climate change.
I encourage contribution of teaching exercises of how you teach paleobotany to the
Carleton website. This can enrich the learning of students. Further, it will contribute to more
complete integration of the whole field of paleontology, which will strengthen our discipline.
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