Richness of lichens growing on Eocene fossil penguin remains from Antarctica
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Richness of lichens growing on Eocene fossil penguin remains from Antarctica Renato García1 · Gonzalo Márquez2 · Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche3 Received: 13 April 2020 / Revised: 1 October 2020 / Accepted: 7 October 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Antarctica presents one of the most severe environmental conditions for life. Under these circumstances, cryptogams are the dominant photosynthetic organisms, among which we find a great richness of lichens. In Antarctic environments, lichens can grow on rocks or in this case on fossil remains, among the few available substrates. In the present contribution, we examined all fossil penguins of the Antarctic collection of the Museo de La Plata, as a significant sample of fossil vertebrates. The selected materials here described come from the Submeseta Formation (Eocene) on Seymour/Marambio Island, located northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula on the Weddell Sea. Given the scarcity of lichenological studies on this island, and the results presented here add significantly to our knowledge of the lichen species that occur there with the recognition of 11 taxa with a crustose morphology (epilithic and endolithic), the sampling of lichens growing on fossil bones acquired an evident importance. Keywords Fossil penguin bones · Endolithic · Bioerosion · Taphonomy · Fungi systematic · Seymour/Marambio Island
Introduction The Antarctic regions present some of the most severe environmental conditions endured by plant life, involving habitats characterized by intense cold, physiological drought, and seasonal limitation of insolation. Antarctica presents a series of terrestrial ecosystems characterized by a greatly
* Renato García [email protected] Gonzalo Márquez [email protected] Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche [email protected] 1
Laboratorio de Biodiversidad y Genética Ambiental, CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda, Mario Bravo 1460, Piñeyro (1870), Buenos Aires, Argentina
2
Cátedra de Palinología, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, CONICET, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque S/N, 1900 La Plata, Argentina
3
División Paleontología de Vertebrados, Museo de La Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo, CONICET, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/nº, B1900FWA, La Plata, Argentina
reduced flora and fauna, which are isolated from other systems by extensive ocean barriers (Lee et al. 2017). Terrestrial ecosystems are restricted to the 4% of icefree lands during the summer months (Rudolph 1977, see also Lee et al. 2017). The severe weather conditions make Antarctica one of the harshest environments on Earth for the development of higher plants (Green et al. 2007). These Antarctic ecosystems are unique since cryptogamic plants and invertebrate animals are the most abundant groups; and among them, lichens (lichenized fungi) have a dominant role (Lindsay 1978; Øvstedal and Smith 2001). Crustose, squamulose, foliose, and fruticose thalli forms,
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