37th Professor sir AC. Seward Memorial Lecture: Links with the past in the plant world: cuticles as recorders of diversity, kerogen formation and palaeoatmospheric CO2 level

Abstract

The study and interpretation of plant cuticles may lead to the establishment of three important (taxonomic, biochemical, physiological) links with the past in the plant world; (1) Cuticles reflect characteristic patterns of epidermal cell organization; on the basis of cuticle analysis natural plant genera and families can be established as a necessary taxonomic background for recognizing past episodes of biodiversity change. (2) Cuticles have a high fossilization potential, due to the presence of resistant biopolymers in the cuticular matrix; chemical analysis of fossil and present-day cuticles can help to clarify interrelationship between extant biomass, kerogen and fossil fuels (3) Cuticles bear the plant’s stomata, essential for photosynthesis; stomatal frequencies are dependent on ambient CO₂ concentration, so that calculation of stomatal indices has the potential of determining palaeoatmospheric CO₂-levels with the time-scale of the last 10 million years.