CIMA team reveals a new plant species

The research team of the CretaCarbo project, developed at the Marine and Environmental Research Center (CIMA) of the University of Algarve and coordinated by researcher Mário Mendes, recently discovered a new species of spore attributable to the Anemiaceae family fetuses. Designated with the scientific name Costatoperforosporites friisiae, this species was only identified in Portuguese paleofloras.

Plants are extremely sensitive organisms to climate change on a continental scale and are therefore evidence of the paleoenvironment changes affecting terrestrial environments. The CretaCarbo project is specifically aimed at understanding the paleoenvironmental conditions that led to the radiation and development of angiosperms (flowering plants), which developed from the Lower Cretaceous about 135 million years ago and are responsible for the settlement of almost all terrestrial ecosystems. The identification of this new species is an excellent contribution to the pursuit of the objectives of the CretaCarbo project and also to the advancement of paleobotany in our country. 

Mário Mendes explains that “the study of fossil plants is of great paleontological interest because it allows us to draw conclusions about the local and regional paleoclimatology of that time, particularly with regard to temperature anomalies and precipitation.” Fossil plants are a key milestone in understanding the organization and functioning of paleocommunities, and by studying fossil flora, we can better understand modern flora.

Paleobotany is economically important in the study of indispensable fossil plant remains, for example, to research energy feedstocks such as oil or charcoal. The results of this research, which has attracted great interest from numerous researchers from other countries, such as France, Japan, Sweden, Germany, and Spain, have recently been published in a scientific journal with international circulation indexed in the ISI Web of Science.

The CretaCarbo project (PTDC/CTE-GIX, 113983/2009) is funded by the FCT and has as its partners the University of Coimbra and the New University of Lisbon.

(From a news report by UAlg- University of Algarve. See full article.)