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Binary_Bark
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For the first time, researchers have succeeded in establishing the relationships between 200-million-year-old plants based on chemical fingerprints. Using infrared spectroscopy and statistical analysis of organic molecules in fossil leaves, they are opening up new perspectives on the dinosaur era.
The unique results stem from a collaboration between researchers at Lund University, the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, and Vilnius University.
"We have solved many questions regarding these extinct plants' relationships. These are questions that science has long been seeking answers to," says Vivi Vajda, a professor at the Department of Geology at Lund University and active at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
The researchers have collected fossil leaves from rocks in Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Greenland. Using molecular spectroscopy and chemical analysis, the fossil leaves were then compared with the chemical signatures from molecules in plant leaves picked at the Botanical Garden in Lund.
The use of genetic DNA analysis in modern research to determine relationships is not possible on fossil plants. The oldest DNA fragments ever found are scarcely one million-years-old. Therefore, the scientists searched for organic molecules to see what these could reveal about the plants' evolution and relationships.
Ginkgo fossil. Credit: Stephen McLoughlin
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-fossil-jurassic.html#jCp
The unique results stem from a collaboration between researchers at Lund University, the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, and Vilnius University.
"We have solved many questions regarding these extinct plants' relationships. These are questions that science has long been seeking answers to," says Vivi Vajda, a professor at the Department of Geology at Lund University and active at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
The researchers have collected fossil leaves from rocks in Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Greenland. Using molecular spectroscopy and chemical analysis, the fossil leaves were then compared with the chemical signatures from molecules in plant leaves picked at the Botanical Garden in Lund.
The use of genetic DNA analysis in modern research to determine relationships is not possible on fossil plants. The oldest DNA fragments ever found are scarcely one million-years-old. Therefore, the scientists searched for organic molecules to see what these could reveal about the plants' evolution and relationships.
Ginkgo fossil. Credit: Stephen McLoughlin
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-fossil-jurassic.html#jCp