CIMA team reveals a new plant species

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

Plants are organisms that are extremely sensitive to climate change on a continental scale, and are therefore a testimony to the paleoenvironmental changes that have affected the terrestrial environment. The CretaCarbo project aims precisely to understand the paleoenvironmental conditions that presided over the radiation and development of angiosperms (flowering plants), which developed from the Lower Cretaceous, about 135 million years ago, and are responsible for the colonization 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 paleoecological interest, as it allows us to draw conclusions about the local and regional paleoclimatology of that time, particularly with regard to temperature and precipitation anomalies. Fossil plants are a central framework for understanding the organization and functioning of paleocommunities and through the study of fossil flora one can better understand the modern flora.

Paleobotany is economically important in the study of fossil plant remains which are indispensable, for example, for research into energy raw materials such as petroleum or charcoal. The results of this research, which has aroused great interest among numerous researchers from other countries, such as France, Japan, Sweden, Germany and Spain, were recently published in a scientific journal of international circulation indexed in the ISI Web of Science.

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

(From news from UAlg- Universidade do Algarve. See full article).