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Fossil evidence of eupolypod ferns in the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar

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Abstract

Divergence time estimates based on DNA sequence variation of extant species suggest that eupolypod ferns were diverse already in the Cretaceous; however, fossil evidence to support this assumption remains exceedingly rare. Holttumopteris burmensis gen. et sp. nov., a fertile fern foliage fragment preserved in a piece of Albian–Cenomanian Burmese amber from Myanmar, is characterized by divided fertile leaves with catadromous, free lateral veins. Sporangia possess a vertical annulus interrupted by the sporangium stalk and contain monolete spores with a lophate perine. The sporangia occur clustered in discrete sori overarched by a laterally attached, reniform indusium. Reconstruction of ancestral character states suggests affinities of Holttumopteris to the Thelypteridaceae; however, several taxonomically relevant characters are not preserved. This discovery is nevertheless important because H. burmensis represents the first unequivocal fossil of a representative of the eupolypods from the middle Cretaceous.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Bo Wang (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology) for providing access to the amber fossil. The research activities that resulted in the discovery of the fern fossil were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant Numbers 41572010, 41622201 and 41688103.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology and Geobio-Center, Faculty of Biology, Ludwig Maximilian University, Menzinger Straße 67, 80638, Munich, Germany

    Ledis Regalado, Julia Bechteler & Jochen Heinrichs

  2. Instituto de Ecología y Sistemática, Carretera de Varona 11835 e/ Oriente y Lindero, La Habana 19, CP 11900, Calabazar, Boyeros, La Habana, Cuba

    Ledis Regalado

  3. Department of Geobiology, Georg August University, Goldschmidtstraße 3, 37077, Göttingen, Germany

    Alexander R. Schmidt

  4. Department für Geo- und Umweltwissenschaften, Paläontologie und Geobiologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, and SNSB-Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie, Richard-Wagner-Straße 10, 80333, Munich, Germany

    Michael Krings

  5. Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Menglun, Mengla, 666303, Yunnan, China

    Harald Schneider

  6. Department of Life Science, Natural History Museum, London, SW75BD, UK

    Harald Schneider

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  1. Ledis Regalado
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  2. Alexander R. Schmidt
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  3. Michael Krings
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jochen Heinrichs.

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Additional information

Handling editor: Mike Thiv.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Online resource 1

Species, vouchers and GenBank accession numbers of the DNA sequences used in this study (PDF 185 kb)

Online resource 2

Alignment (PDF 610 kb)

Online resource 3

Morphological characters and states scored for the eupolypod ferns used in the ancestral state reconstructions (PDF 189 kb)

Online resource 4

Log likelihood values for three models of rate transitions between character states (PDF 15 kb)

Online resource 5

Divergence time estimates for eupolypods (PDF 115 kb)

Online resource 6

Node numbers for divergence time estimates (PDF 1400 kb)

7

Proportional likelihood of character states for all nodes in the phylogeny of eupolypod ferns (PDF 1319 kb)

Information on Electronic Supplementary Material

Information on Electronic Supplementary Material

Online resource 1. Species, vouchers and GenBank accession numbers of the DNA sequences used in this study.

Online resource 2. Alignment.

Online resource 3. Morphological characters and states scored for the eupolypod ferns used in the ancestral state reconstructions.

Online resource 4. Log likelihood values for three models of rate transitions between character states.

Online resource 5. Divergence time estimates for eupolypods.

Online resource 6. Node numbers for divergence time estimates.

Online resource 7. Proportional likelihood of character states for all nodes in the phylogeny of eupolypod ferns.

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Regalado, L., Schmidt, A.R., Krings, M. et al. Fossil evidence of eupolypod ferns in the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar. Plant Syst Evol 304, 1–13 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-017-1439-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-017-1439-2

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