ありふれた植物化石に生物学的意義を見出す

抄録

The number of palaeobotanists in Japan is decreasing since the 2000s, despite the discipline is irreplaceable to understand the history of our biosphere. We, animals, intuitively think character of the plants is difficult to interpret, but most plants actually have a quite simple body plan consisting basically of roots, stems and leaves. There are abundant plant fossils with their tissues preserved, because plant cells have walls resistant to degradation. Developmental process of a plant tissue could be reconstructed based on cell arrangements of the tissue, because plant cells are immobile. These characteristics often enable us to study biological aspects of a plant fossil even if it is a common, not rare, plant fossil. In this review, I give examples of palaeo- and neo- botanical studies to lower the emotional barriers for plants which many paleontologists might subconsciously possess.