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What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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Posted by wadet z8a (My Page) on Fri, Jun 22, 07 at 4:34
| The first forests appeared in the Devonian period about 400,000,000 years ago. The Sequoiadendron appeared 200,000,000 years ago during the Triassic, and the time of the first dinosaurs. The Sequoia sempervirens dates back to the Cretaceous or 100,000,000 years ago - actually I'm not sure on that one. Someone correct me.:)
I know there's a big hole between the Devonian period and the Triassic. So, what's the oldest surviving confier lineage?
Thanks! (just a layperson looking for answers):) |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| In terms of a single conifer species, Sciadopitys verticillata is the one that has the longest history separate from other living conifers. In family terms, Pinaceae is the oldest living lineage (separated from other living conifers for the longest). Ginkgo is of course of longer separation, but isn't a true conifer. Resin |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| According to this article, Quote: Starting about 420 million years ago, a bizarre cylindrical life form called Prototaxites (pro-tow-TAX-i-tees) became a prominent element of the terrestrial landscape. Up to 8 meters tall, and as much as 1 meter in diameter, Prototaxites has confounded paloebotanists for nearly a century and a half.
The discoverer of Prototaxites thought it was a vascular plant, and chose a name that means "early yew."
[end quote] The article reports on research that claims that Prototaxites were in fact fungi, because they appear to have been parasitic.
But is that really proof, considering that such yews exist even today ? (ie. Parasitaxus ustus, in New Caledonia) |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Just saw a show last night on "Forests" produced in 2007 in HD where they stated the Bristlcone Pine was the oldest known trees. Even older that the Sequoia which was discussed right before the Bristlecone. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Hi Grancru, That's in respect of individual plants; the query is about species. Resin |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| If this is about individuals,some mornings I think I'm a contender. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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Some say that Ginkgo biloba is a link between the conifers
and the ferns interesting stuff. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| From this thread, I get these contenders: 1) Sciadopitys verticillata & Ginkgo more recently 2) Sequoiadendron more recently 3) Coastal redwood Where would the following place?: 1) any araucaria 2) any agathis 3) cunninghamia 4) wollemi 5) metasequoia 6) any taxodium 7) cathaya 8) any torreya 9) any keteleeria other present-day So. Hemisphere conifers such as podocarpus, dacrydium, retrophyllum, neocallitropsis, others? |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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For conifer families:
 For genera in Cupressaceae (inc. Sequoia, etc.):
 For genera in Taxaceae & Cephalotaxaceae:
 For genera in Pinaceae:
 Phylogeny of the genera in Podocarpaceae is not yet fully known. Resin |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| OK, so where does Prototaxus fit in, assuming its *not* a fungus, as claimed in the recent research. Presumably, it should be at the left end of the next-to-last diagram, titled "For genera in Taxaceae & Cephalotaxaceae" ? And how about Parasitaxus ? ...don't see it in the above diagrams either. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| You could split them pretty much to either Northern or Southern Hemisphere, or just completely tropical, couldn't you? Any old tree lineages to survive in both hemispheres? The Pinaceae seem to have dominated the cold and alpine regions of the North, was this always so? What is analogous to the alpine Pinaceae in the southern areas? |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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Its not that simple: What is north and south today, may have been quite different half-a-billion years ago.
The phenomenon of "wandering poles" affects where the different continents were in the past.
Antarctica for example, is thought to have been tropical in the distant past (there is fossil evidence to that effect).
The tilt of the rotation axis of the Earth actually remains fixed relative to the sun, but the crust moves relative to this axis.
Scientists have modeled true polar wander in Earth's past, that was generated by the upwelling of hot mantle in the interior of the planet.
Some scientists claim this shifted our planet's rotation axis 90 degrees some 800 million years ago, tipping the planet on its side. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| "so where does Prototaxus fit in" - impossible to say. No doubt the discoverers thought it might be basal to the Taxaceae, but the evidence is pretty poor! "And how about Parasitaxus ?" - in Podocarpaceae. "Any old tree lineages to survive in both hemispheres?" - Cupressaceae, with 18 genera in the north, and 11 genera in the south (Papuacedrus is just N of the equator in New Guinea, but is a southern genus in its relationship; Juniperus procera crosses the equator in east Africa, but is a northern species on relationships). "What is analogous to the alpine Pinaceae in the southern areas?" - There isn't really anything analogous! Not least, because there is very little continental land mass in the cool temperate southern hemisphere. Resin |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Facinating stuff! Thanks Resin.
According to a Wikipedia artical, The Sciadopitys verticillata - Japanese Umbrella-pine, 'is the sole member of the family Sciadopityaceae and genus Sciadopitys, a living fossil with no close relatives, and known in the fossil record for about 230 million years.' arauquoia, Metasequoia appeared sometime during the Cretaceous according to this site: http://www.askmar.com/Redwoods/Redwood.html |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| What is the source for the 230 millions years? |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| It's always going to be confusing when discussing lineages because, for example, the genus Sequoiadendron had upwards of 25 species, but S. giganteum is probably no more than 12 million years in extent. Conifers have a simpler habit and reproduction systems than true flowering plants and evolved in warm, low oxygen (high altitude) environments during the late paleozoic and early mesozoic. They also had to contend with poorer soils and no cooperative insects (that we know of). Ginkgo is truly amazing for having survived so long as a single species, including several mass extinctions. It has not done well with glaciation and competition from flowering plants. There were other ginkgo species though. They are all gone. You might want to research "living fossils". |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| I always assumed that Ginkgo is the oldest living conifer. What makes it not a true conifer? |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| it belongs to a different order. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?ginkgo info
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| Interesting,I just had a look on the wiki,it is sometimes classed in Pinophyta,but usually not nowadays. It is technically a Gymnosperm but not a conifer. Its as if these were 2 seperate lines the Gymnosperms went. Conifers and Ginkgoales! |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Right, but also remember that the Gymnosperm group also includses the Gnetophytes and Cycadophyta also, in addition to the Pinophyta and Ginkgoaceae, or atleast thats the case until the wiki community decides to do more mergers* * I don’t like the wiki flowering plant classifications- the authorities that the dominant botany community there uses are all self- announced lumpers that "Prefer larger families whenever possible" – a direct quote. I don’t have a problem with lumping per se but I think their bar for family identity is set too high. I think their conifer classification is pretty good for now, though. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| PINE RESIN, How does one go about reading that lineage chart? Are the families aranged in a sort of chronological order from top to bottom, so that say metasequoia is older than sequoia, sequoia older than sequoiadendron, and so on? Or is that chart not arranged for time. I saw that chart on wikipedia before, but was confused as to the organization of it. Thanks for your time, and thanks for posting that. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Hi Sequoia_stiffy, The top three are read chronologically from left to right, the fourth one (Pinaceae) from bottom to top. So in the first one, the ancestral Pinophyta first split two ways, into Pinaceae and the rest, then the rest split two ways into an Araucariaceae-Podocarpaceae ancestor, and an ancestor for Cupressaceae-Taxaceae-etc. And so on. The longer a line has been unbranched for, the older that lineage is; so in the Cupressaceae diagram, Cunninghamia has been split off from the rest for the longest, then Taiwania, then Athrotaxis. Then the Sequoia-Sequoiadendron-Metasequoia group split off, but after splitting off from the rest of Cupressaceae, further diverged into 3 genera. So none of the three is particularly old of themselves, but the group of the three of them are faily old. Hope that helps! Resin |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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These diagrams put the Taxaceae as a late-arriving group.
That seems to clash with the claim that Prototaxites were the earliest ancestors....
Is there any more recent research or more fossil evidence on this topic ? (Thnx) |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| HEy can anybody help with the pronunctiation of some of these families? I'm getting intimidated by the tripple-vowel ending of all them, how do you pronounce that ("EAE")? Is it eee-ay or ay-eee? |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| "Prototaxites" Saw a recent article that pointed out it isn't a conifer at all, but a giant fungus. So completely irrelevant to conifer phylogeny. "HEy can anybody help with the pronunctiation of some of these families?" Basically, say it how you like. I tend to say "-a-see-ay", though that's not really correct Latin. If you really want to get it right, best practice is to use the pronunciation that Julius Caesar or Cicero, etc., would have used; they would have said something more like "-ake-eye" ('c' is always hard, like a 'k', in Latin). Resin |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| "Saw a recent article that pointed out it isn't a conifer at all, but a giant fungus. So completely irrelevant to conifer phylogeny." Would that be the article I linked above (third post from top), or something more recent ? |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Hi Jaro, A different one, tho' presumably referring to the same research Resin |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Resin -- those diagrams should be referenced. Presenting them without attribution implies that these are universally accepted relationships free of other interpretations present or future, new data be damned, an unscientific approach in any field let alone systematics. |
RE: What's the oldest surviving lineage?
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| Hi Pinetree, For conifer families: Proc. 4th Intl. Conif. Conf. 75-89, 129-136 For Cupressaceae: Amer. J. Bot. 87: 1044-1057; Proc. 4th Intl. Conif. Conf. 129-136 For Taxaceae & Cephalotaxaceae: Proc. 4th Intl. Conif. Conf. 233-237 For Pinaceae: Notes RBG Edinb. 45: 527-548 |
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