Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama.
Grupo de Investigación Paleontología Neotropical Tradicional y Molecular (PaleoNeo), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Matemáticas, Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.
Science. 2021 Apr 2;372(6537):63-68. doi: 10.1126/science.abf1969.
The end-Cretaceous event was catastrophic for terrestrial communities worldwide, yet its long-lasting effect on tropical forests remains largely unknown. We quantified plant extinction and ecological change in tropical forests resulting from the end-Cretaceous event using fossil pollen (>50,000 occurrences) and leaves (>6000 specimens) from localities in Colombia. Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) rainforests were characterized by an open canopy and diverse plant-insect interactions. Plant diversity declined by 45% at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary and did not recover for ~6 million years. Paleocene forests resembled modern Neotropical rainforests, with a closed canopy and multistratal structure dominated by angiosperms. The end-Cretaceous event triggered a long interval of low plant diversity in the Neotropics and the evolutionary assembly of today's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem.
白垩纪末期事件对全球陆地生物群落是灾难性的，但它对热带森林的长期影响在很大程度上仍不清楚。我们利用哥伦比亚各地的化石花粉（>50,000 个样本）和叶片（>6,000 个样本），量化了白垩纪末期事件对热带森林造成的植物灭绝和生态变化。晚白垩世（马斯特里赫特期）雨林的特点是树冠开阔，植物与昆虫的相互作用多种多样。在白垩纪-古近纪交界，植物多样性下降了 45%，且大约 600 万年都没有恢复。古新世森林类似于现代新热带雨林，具有封闭的树冠和多层结构，以被子植物为主。白垩纪末期事件引发了新热带地区一段长时间的低植物多样性时期，并促成了当今最具多样性的陆地生态系统的进化组合。
