- According to the research, it was revealed that the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs did not harm some flowering plant species and even the flowers developed over time.
- To understand how flowering plants responded to extinction, researchers looked at major plant lineages by mapping DNA mutations.
- Families of flowering plants we see todaymost of, Ancestors of modern orchids, magnolias and mints lived with dinosaurswas. Yarrow formationFame Surviving flowering plants then spreadarak diversified.
When an asteroid hit Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula 66 million years ago, the Earth lost three-quarters of its living creatures, including all dinosaurs that did not belong to a bird species. Scientists call this period the “Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction” event.
Scientists have discovered that flowering plants were largely unscathed by the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event 66 million years ago and were able to benefit from the new dinosaur-free planet.
The giant asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago) left the flowers relatively unharmed, and they continued to thrive, according to a new study.
Biology Letters New modeling reveals that despite widespread devastation, the main stems of flowering plants called “angiosperms” were developed enough to survive the deadly event and reap their fruits, according to a study published Sept. 13 in the journal Nature.
Lead author of the study, Jamie Thompson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Bath in England, said: in the statement, “After most of Earth’s species went extinct in the K-Pg, angiosperms took advantage, similar to how mammal species took over after the dinosaurs, and almost all life on Earth is now ecologically dependent on flowering plants.” said.
The Paleontological Society Papers According to a 2008 study in the journal Science, researchers have difficulty identifying flowering plants in the fossil record; Most of the records consist of isolated leaves not associated with other plants. “There is evidence of extinction of flowering plants following the asteroid impact, but there was no widespread decline as in other types of organisms.” It was recorded.
To learn more about how flowering plants responded to the K-Pg extinction event, the study authors previously looked at major flowering plant lineages by mapping DNA mutations in thousands of species.
The researchers used mathematical models to determine whether flowering plants experienced a relatively stable extinction rate over time and whether there was evidence of a mass extinction. According to the study, it turns out that during this event, larger family groups survived while individual species disappeared.
Many of the flowering plant families we see today arose before the K-Pg event; The ancestors of modern orchids, magnolias and mints lived with dinosaurs. Following the K-Pg extinction, surviving flowering plants spread and diversified.
“Flowering plants have extraordinary adaptability: They use a variety of seed dispersal and pollination mechanisms,” Santiago Ramírez-Barahona, a researcher from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said in a statement. “Some species have copied their entire genomes, while others have evolved new pathways for photosynthesis.” said.
Compiled by: Burçin Bağatur
