Borissiak Palaeontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117647, Russia.
Institute of Biology, Biotechnology and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, 40-007, Poland.
Biol Lett. 2023 Mar;19(3):20220523. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0523. Epub 2023 Mar 1.
Recent fossil discoveries suggest that the coevolution of insect pollinators and gymnosperms started long before the appearance of flowering plants. One of the keys to understanding the origins of pollination relationships is fossil insects with gymnosperm pollen attached to the body surface. Such fossils are exceedingly rare to find, especially from the Palaeozoic, a time when ambers with insect inclusions were absent. Here, we report compression fossils of Early Permian tillyardembiid insects (Polyneoptera) preserved with pollen on their heads, thoraces, legs and abdomens. This is the earliest finding of pollen-bearing insects, predating the previous oldest record from the Middle Jurassic by 120 Ma. Judging by the pollen composition, tillyardembiids visited a narrow range of host plants, including Rufloriaceae (Cordaitales). While it is impossible to say for certain whether tillyardembiids as pollen consumers contributed to pollination, a trophic specialization of this kind could be considered an evolutionary precursor of pollination mutualism.
最近的化石发现表明，昆虫传粉者和裸子植物的共同进化早在开花植物出现之前就开始了。了解传粉关系起源的关键之一是具有附在身体表面的裸子植物花粉的化石昆虫。这样的化石极其罕见，尤其是在古生代，那时没有琥珀，里面有昆虫。在这里，我们报告了早二叠世 tillyardembiid 昆虫（多足类）的压缩化石，它们的头部、胸部、腿部和腹部保存有花粉。这是最早发现的带有花粉的昆虫，比之前从中侏罗世记录的最古老的化石早了 1.2 亿年。根据花粉组成判断，tillyardembiids 访问了包括 Rufloraceae（Cordaitales）在内的窄范围的宿主植物。虽然不能肯定地说，作为花粉消费者的 tillyardembiids 是否有助于传粉，但这种营养特化可以被认为是传粉互惠的进化前兆。
