In PLOS, SFI External Professor Brian Enquist, Benjamin Blonder (University of Arizona), and colleagues suggest that the meteorite that spelled extinction for the dinosaurs could be responsible for modern forest landscapes favoring deciduous trees over evergreens.
The team analyzed more than 1,000 fossilized plant leaves and classified their survival strategies. They found that slow-growing plants such as evergreens prevailed before the extinction event, while fast-growing, fast-flowering deciduous plants displaced them after the collision. According to the PLOS synopsis, the study could be of use in predicting the fallout of “the ongoing mass extinction that appears to be resulting from the dramatic and multifaceted global changes caused by humans.”
Read the paper and news synopsis in PLOS (September 16, 2014)
Read the article in Newsweek (September 16, 2014)
Read the article in UANews (September 16, 2014)
Read the article in the International Business Times (U.K.) (September 16, 2014)
Read the article in the online Daily Mail (U.K.) (September 16, 2014)