origins & biogeography of high level taxa

[Ken Kinman]

TAXACOMERS:
     John Grehan's message of December 6th unfortunately didn't have a
subject line, but I think it brings up some interesting things to think
about.
      Discovery of a Jurassic angiosperm was no surprise to me, since
the early angiosperms were undoubtedly restricted to habitats that
aren't conducive to leaving a fossil record.   Such early "body fossils"
of angiosperms would be expected to be very rare.  I am no botanist, and
am not familiar with pollen evolution, so I don't know how extensively
the Jurassic pollen record has been studied, but I would guess pollen
records would be less rare, and potentially more informative for
angiosperm origins.
     With such a scarcity of fossil material, I doubt that
panbiogeography would be as helpful here as it has been for some
vertebrate groups, etc.  I certainly intend to learn more about this
subject, and would appreciate being corrected if any of the above
impressions are misguided in some way.
   For me the main question of angiosperm origins remains the same: were
they "woody" or "paleoherbs"????  With a poor fossil record, I believe
biogeographical have less potential to answer this question than do
molecular data (by which I mean extensive data sets that are properly
analyzed and interpreted).  I could be surprised by some unexpected
fossil data, but I don't presently believe that angiosperm origins is a
good candidate for demonstrating the potential of panbiogeographical
analysis.  Coevolution of flowering plants and pollenators is a very
important subject, but I just don't think it can help with angiosperm
origins at this juncture (although speculations could point the way to
fruitful avenues of inquiry).
                   from a non-botanist,
                           Kenneth E. Kinman

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