Origin and Early Evolution of Hydrocharitaceae and the Ancestral Role of Stratiotes

The combined morphological features of Stratiotes (Hydrocharitaceae) pollen, observed with light and electron microscopy, make it unique among all angiosperm pollen types and easy to identify. Unfortunately, the plant is (and most likely was) insect-pollinated and produces relatively few pollen grains per flower, contributing to its apparent absence in the paleopalynological record. Here, we present fossil Stratiotes pollen from the Eocene of Germany (Europe) and Kenya (Africa), representing the first reliable pre-Pleistocene pollen records of this genus worldwide and the only fossils of this family discovered so far in Africa. The fossil Stratiotes pollen grains are described and compared to pollen from a single modern species, Stratiotes aloides L. The paleophytogeographic significance and paleoecological aspects of these findings are discussed in relation to the Hydrocharitaceae fossil records and molecular phylogeny, as well as the present-day distribution patterns of its modern genera.

Descrição

Funding Information: This study was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) with a grant to F.G., project number P34303; Open Access Funding by the University of Vienna. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission. Publisher Copyright: © 2024 by the authors.

Palavras-chave

aquatic plant Eocene Kenya Messel paleoecology plant dispersal route pollen morphology tropical forest Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Ecology Plant Science

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10362/172646

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13071008

Coleções

Home collection (FCT)

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