Earth has experienced at least five mass extinctions, and plants have proven to be more resilient to these events than animals.
Researchers looked at over 20,000 plant fossils to gain insight into how these extinction events shaped plant diversity and the Earth's ecosystems, the University of Gothenburg reported.
The researchers found that while different mass extinctions had different impacts on plant life, trends of negative diversification (more species dying off than new ones being formed) never lasted long. This suggests plants are extremely resilient to occurrences that prove to be catastrophic in the animal kingdom.
"In the plant kingdom, mass extinction events can be seen as opportunities for turnover leading to renewed biodiversity," said leading author Daniele Silvestro.
Some of the study's most dramatic findings were from the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction, which was caused by an asteroid impact off the Mexican coast some 66 million years ago. The findings show that the effects of the impact led to the extinction of all dinosaurs except for birds, but had only limited influences on plant life.
During this time, some plant groups such as gymnosperms (including pines, spruce and firs) showed a significant loss in diversity, while others such as flowering plants actually increased their diversity shortly after the impact. This event is believed to be a key reason behind why today, flowering plants are still the most diverse.
"Mass extinctions are often thought as a bad thing, but they have been crucial in changing the world into how we know it today," said senior author Alexandre Antonelli. "By studying such extreme events we are trying to learn which groups of organisms and features are more sensitive to changes, so that we can apply this knowledge to protect biodiversity in the face of on-going climate change and human deterioration of natural ecosystems."
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal New Phytologist.
