Understanding Devonian and Carboniferous floras: New work on old plants.

The Devonian to early Carboniferous is a key time in plant evolution, with the gradual colonization of continental surfaces and the apparition of numerous biological novelties (first leaves, first deep root systems, first trees, etc). It marks the establishment of “modern” terrestrial ecosystems and sees the diversification of all the major groups of vascular plants. There are still of course many questions regarding plant evolution and diversity at that time: the origin of major groups, the biology of these plants, their interactions with other organisms such as fungi, or the impact on the vegetation of important environmental changes, including the biological crisis that affected animals at the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary. We will explain the general context and aims of our ongoing research on these questions, present fieldwork conducted this year in France & Ireland, and introduce the objectives & 1st results of Thibault's PhD