Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Paleobiology, Washington, DC 20013, USA.
Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2013 Aug;16(4):414-21. doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2013.06.003. Epub 2013 Jul 2.
Fossil plant-insect associations (PIAs) such as herbivory and pollination have become increasingly relevant to paleobiology and biology. Researchers studying fossil PIAs now employ procedures for assuring unbiased representation of field specimens, use of varied analytical quantitative techniques, and address ecological and evolutionarily important issues. For herbivory, the major developments are: Late Silurian-Middle Devonian (ca. 420-385Ma) origin of herbivory; Late Pennsylvanian (318-299Ma) expansion of herbivory; Permian (299-252Ma) herbivore colonization of new habitats; consequences of the end-Permian (252Ma) global crisis; early Mesozoic (ca. 235-215Ma) rediversification of plants and herbivores; end-Cretaceous (66.5Ma) effects on extinction; and biological effects of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) (55.8Ma). For pollination, salient issues include: Permian pollination evidence; the plant hosts of mid-Mesozoic (ca. 160-110Ma) long-proboscid pollinators; and effect of the angiosperm revolution (ca. 125-90Ma) on earlier pollinator relationships. Multispecies interaction studies, such as contrasting damage types with insect diversity and establishing robust food webs, expand the compass and relevance of past PIAs.
化石植物-昆虫共生关系（PIA），如食草和传粉，对古生物学和生物学变得越来越重要。研究化石 PIA 的研究人员现在采用了确保野外标本无偏代表性的程序、使用各种分析定量技术，并解决生态和进化上重要的问题。对于食草动物，主要的发展包括：食草动物起源于志留纪晚期-泥盆纪早期（约 4.20-3.85 亿年前）；食草动物在宾夕法尼亚纪晚期（3.18-2.99 亿年前）扩张；二叠纪（2.99-2.52 亿年前）食草动物对新栖息地的殖民；二叠纪末（2.52 亿年前）全球危机的后果；早中生代（约 2.35-2.15 亿年前）植物和食草动物的重新多样化；白垩纪末期（6650 万年前）对灭绝的影响；以及古新世-始新世极热事件（PETM）（5580 万年前）的生物影响。对于传粉，突出的问题包括：二叠纪传粉证据；中中生代（约 1.60-1.10 亿年前）长喙传粉媒介的植物寄主；以及被子植物革命（约 1.25-0.90 亿年前）对早期传粉者关系的影响。多物种相互作用研究，如昆虫多样性与损伤类型的对比以及建立稳健的食物网，扩展了过去 PIA 的范围和相关性。
