Terrestrilisation

Question 1

What is the period covered by terrestrialisation?

Answer 1

Ordovician to Devonian

Question 2

What is terrestrialisation?

Answer 2

Colonisation of the land habitat from the sea, via freshwater habitats, by plants and animals

Question 3

What was the rate of terrestrialisation like?

Answer 3

Staggered/ stepwise changes in multiple lineages these subjected to increased competition over time driving evolutionary change

Question 4

What are the physiological barriers to life on land?

Answer 4

Methods of respiration
Water management
Osmoregulation
Digestion
Temperature control
Reproduction
Dispersal
Sensory perception -
Support
Locomotion

Question 5

Why was the method of respiration a barrier to life on land?

Answer 5

Needed to adapt to breathing in atmosphere

Question 6

Why was water management a barrier to life on land?

Answer 6

Needed for drinking and survival

Question 7

Why was osmoregulation a barrier to life on land?

Answer 7

needed to maintain water pressure and water retention

Question 8

Why was digestion a barrier to life on land?

Answer 8

Adapting to eating in the atmosphere

Question 9

Why was temperature control a barrier to life on land?

Answer 9

water regulates temp while self regulation needed on land

Question 10

Why was dispersal a barrier to life on land?

Answer 10

Needed movement from birth to living site otherwise clumping occurs

Question 11

What are the 4 basic methods of water management in the fossil record?

Answer 11

Aquatic
Cryptic
Poikilohydric
Homoiohydric

Question 12

What are aquatic organisms water management system?

Answer 12

microscopic organisms which live in interstitial water in soils

Question 13

What are some examples of aquatic organisms that live in interstitial water?

Answer 13

Some microscopic nematodes
Protozoans
some algae

Question 14

What habitat do cryptic forms live in?

Answer 14

constant high humidity such as soil and tropical forest litter

Question 15

What are some examples of cryptic form organisms?

Answer 15

Some algae
Homosporous ferns
Earthworms, leeches

Question 16

What do Poikilohydric organisms require?

Answer 16

high humidity to function but can tolerate desiccation by drying out and rehydrating
when conditions become more favourable

Question 17

What are some examples of Poikilohydric organisms?

Answer 17

Cyanobacteria
Some bryophytes (mosses, lichens), algae
Some higher plants
Mites

Question 18

How do Homoiohydric organisms manage water?

Answer 18

osmoregulation, waterproof cuticles,
and internal water transport systems

Question 19

What are some examples of Homoiohydric organisms?

Answer 19

Most tracheophytes (vascular plants)
Tetrapods (vertebrates, 4 feet)
Insects
Arachnids
Some isopods
Terrestrial molluscs (e.g. gastropods)

Question 20

How does the cuticle help with water management in homoiohydric organisms?

Answer 20

Waxy external and internal layers to regulate water content

Question 21

What is the role of stomata in vascular plants?

Answer 21

Stomata within cuticle to regulate water loss, and allow gaseous exchange

Question 22

What is the role of the xylem?

Answer 22

water transport

Question 23

What is the role of the phylum?

Answer 23

nutrient transport

Question 24

What provides the upright support for terrestrial plants?

Answer 24

Cortex
Vascular tissues (xylem, including
wood, and phloem)
lesser extent the cuticle
Roots

Question 25

What is the purpose of roots?

Answer 25

Tether to land Penetration into substrate Key to nutrient and water uptake Large surface area for weathering reactions

Question 26

What does the rock record located in Oman depicting the upper Ordovician have potential evidence of?

Answer 26

Spores showing potential terrestrial plant life

Question 27

Based on research by Charlie Wellman what colonised land first?

Answer 27

Cyanobacteria and algae colonised land first, but restricted to moist environments

Question 28

what was the main group of organisms involved in terrestrialisation?

Answer 28

Carnivores

Question 29

When did a multi tiered ecosystem develop?

Answer 29

Upper Ordovician into Silurian

Question 30

What is the suggested earliest example of a terrestrial animal and its complicated context?

Answer 30

Arthropod track (millipede like) hard to date as in aeolian bed with no other biostratigraphy and potential to just be organism dying

Question 31

What is Tiktaalik evidence of?

Answer 31

Limbs first starting to developing with Acanthostega being the first to have bones/toes

Question 32

Where can you find the Devonian Rhynie Chert?

Answer 32

Middle Devonian Aberdeenshire

Question 33

What is the importance of the Rhynie chert?

Answer 33

Produces 3d fossils due to being a hot spring and hydrothermal vent area high in minerals like silica

Question 34

What are Rhyniophytes?

Answer 34

Oldest known land plants, assumed ancestral to all other land plants lower Silurian to Lower Devonian

Question 35

What are some of the genera of rhyniophytes?

Answer 35

Cooksonia, Uskiella, Horneophyton

Question 36

What are Zosterophylls?

Answer 36

Lower to middle Devonian plant adapted to ephemeral environment example is Zosterophyllum

Question 37

What are lycophytes?

Answer 37

Lower devonian to present plant which needs water to reproduce

Question 38

What are sphenophytes?

Answer 38

Mid devonian to recent which need swampy conditions for reproduction

Question 39

What are trimerophytes and Cladoxyls?

Answer 39

Lower to mid devonian plant adapted to ephemeral environment Cladoxyls same but late to mid devonian

Question 40

What are Progymnosperms?

Answer 40

Mid to late Devonian Adapted for drier environments. First ‘modern tree

Question 41

What are Gymnosperms

Answer 41

Seed plants Late devonian to recent Dry environments Colonis eupland areas

Question 42

What did large scale wood production from early trees allow for?

Answer 42

Huge movement of CO2 to the biopshere

Question 43

What is an example of a model for atmospheric change over geological time?

Answer 43

Berner’s Geocarb (III) model

Question 44

How has data been collected and generated for Berner’s Geocarb (III) model?

Answer 44

Weathering uplift factor Inferred carbon uptake by organisms Palaeographic model or sea and land area Gross effect of volcanic weathering, processes Isotopic composition of fossil seas Plants to predict metabolic carbon uptake Land and sea runoff

Question 45

What is a major drop in co2 in the Palaeozoic associated with?

Answer 45

Terrestrialisation and the colonisation of land by plants

Question 46

What is the major drop in co2 due to terrestrialisation linked to?

Answer 46

An increase in O2 via transpiration

Question 47

What is the reason for a major drop of co2 in the Devonian-Carboniferous?

Answer 47

Rise in vascular plants

Question 48

How did plans affect the sediment when they first established?

Answer 48

Generate decay resistant organic matter Accelerated weathering by roots

Question 49

What was colonisation like in the lower Devonian?

Answer 49

Wet settings, Rivers, lakes, lagoons etc., Low diversity, Low height, Low density

Question 50

What was colonisation like in the upper Devonian?

Answer 50

Wet settings plus initial colonisation of uplands, Increased plant height, Increased plant density, Soils developing

Question 51

What occurred with pedogenesis intensification in the Devonian?

Answer 51

Large increase in thickness and distribution of soils

Question 52

What was the result of enhanced chemical weathering of soils?

Answer 52

Large scale run off into river systems carrying nutrients into seas and leading to eutrophication and algal blooms causing anoxia

Question 53

What rock is produced a s a result of bottom water anoxia?

Answer 53

black shale

Question 54

What 2 anoxia mass extinctions occurred late Devonian?

Answer 54

Kellwasser Hangenberg

Question 55

What shift occurred in river systems due to colonisation of plants?

Answer 55

From braided straight channels to meandering rivers