Jakarta –
Have you ever heard of preserved trees? In the fossil record, what is preserved in trees is only the trunk without leaves. However, the latest findings from scientists show other facts about the existence of a unique three-dimensional crown. What does it mean?
A study published in the journal Current Biology shows new discoveries of tree fossils in New Brunswick, Canada. This tree is unique because it forms an unusual and different three-dimensional crown when viewed from different points of view.
This tree in New Brunswick is 350 million years old. The tree looks like a fern or palm. However, the leaves are different from those of ferns or palms, which are gathered at the top and are few in number.
“This tree can produce very long leaves on thin stems and lots of leaves on short stems. This is not like trees in general,” said Robert Gastaldo from Colby College, Waterville, quoted from Scitechdaily.
“On the other hand, Sanfordiacaulis is a tree with 250 leaves around its trunk. Some of the preserved leaves are up to 1.75 meters long from the trunk,” he added.
He also said that it is estimated that each leaf can grow at least another meter before it finally stops growing again. This means that this tree has a dense leaf canopy that is approximately 5.5 meters long around a non-woody trunk and only 16 centimeters in diameter.
Joint Research on Plant Evolution
The recording of tree fossils was successful thanks to Mathew Stimson’s long-term international collaboration with Olivia King from the New Brunswick Museum, Saint John, and Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
They discovered the facts of plant evolution and arborescence, namely plants that grow as tall as trees or at least 15 feet when mature.
“This is reminiscent of trees that look different from those commonly found, some of which look as if they came from the imagination of Dr. Seuss,” said the researchers.
Gastaldo said that researchers already have a concept of what different trees look like, depending on the place we live and the experiences we have.
The reported fossil is an example of unique and strange growth throughout the history of life, showing one of the evolutionary experiments when forest plants underwent biological diversification.
Scarcity of Fossil Trees
The tree fossils themselves were preserved through burial by trees and other plants as a result of the earthquake disaster along the edge of the rift lake. Although the first fossils were discovered about 7 years ago, only one partial sample could be found at that time.
It took several more years to find four specimens of the same plant, which were found in close proximity. One of the specimens shows how the leaves detach from the top of the tree, making it very unique.
This rarely happens in fossils more than 400 million years old, especially those with stems and corollas that are still well preserved.
According to researchers, the discovery of tree fossils with intact crown leaves like this is very rare in the history of life.
The attachment of the corolla to the trunk raises questions about the type of plant in question, the structure of the plant, and whether this form still exists today or is something outside the ‘normal’ concept of a tree.
These questions, and many more, are the focus of this multi-year research effort.
The researchers report that the tree likely relies on its unusual growth form to maximize the amount of light it can capture and reduce competition with other plants on the ground.
The researchers also said that the tree represents the earliest evidence of small trees growing beneath the higher forest canopy.
This means plant life in the early Carboniferous period was more complex than expected, suggesting that Sanfordiacaulis lived at a time when plants were experimenting with different possible shapes or architectures.
“The history of life on land consists of plants and animals that are different from those that exist today,” said Gastaldo.
“Evolutionary mechanisms that occurred in the past resulted in organisms that managed to live for long periods of time. However, their shape, form, growth architecture and life history had different trajectories and strategies,” he concluded.
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2024-02-28 12:30:19
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