How flowers conquered the world
By BBC, MATT WALKER
Added: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:00:00 UTC
Thanks to Ivan for the link.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8143000/8143095.stm
The great explosion in flowering plants during the Cretaceous Period is one of the great enigmas of evolution.
Charles Darwin had no explanation, calling it an "abominable mystery".
But now scientists think they have solved the riddle of how flowers came to dominate the conifers and ferns that preceded them.
The flowers' secret, they say, was to exploit a change in soil fertility, and create a feedback loop that allowed new flowers to feed off dead ones.
The relative explosion of flowering plants greatly worried Darwin.
In a letter written on 8 March 1875 to palaeobotanist Oswald Heer, he said: "The sudden appearance of so many Dycotyledons in the Upper Chalk appears to me a most perplexing phenomenon to all who believe in any form of evolution."
Continue reading:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8143000/8143095.stm
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