Filamentous cyanobacteria fossils and their significance in the Permian-Triassic boundary section at Laolongdong, Chongqing

The microbial communities blooming immediately after the end-Permian mass extinction represent abnormally extreme environments, and vary in different areas. In this study, filamentous cyanobacterial biota was found in the strata after the extinction in the famous Permian-Triassic boundary section at Laolongdong, Chongqing, southwest China. In thin sections, the filamentous cyanobacterial fossils are below 1 mm in length, and generally taper to one end, with the widest diameter up to 0.08 mm. Some of them are curved, indicating that they are soft in life. Their walls are composed of cryptocrystalline to microcrystalline calcites. The filaments have round cross section, and are internally filled with micrites and fine sparry calcites, which indicate that the filaments are originally empty. They are randomly distributed in the rocks, but in some places, they tend to be distributed in radial pattern. The filamentous organisms are morphologically similar to Rivularia of Rivulariaceae, Cyanobacteria Phylum, but with calcified sheaths, and are tentatively regarded as an indeterminate new species in Rivularia： Rivularia sp. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic autotrophic, and can survive in dysoxic condition. The blooming of this organism and the absence of other organisms may indicate that the environment was oxygendeficient and shallow, since this photosynthetic autotrophic organism needed to live within photic.     

生物多样性及其进化中的模糊问题研究

生物多样性是现代生物学研究的热门内容之一.根据现代生物学和古生物学研究成就,就生物多样性概念、生物多样性诞生、生物多样性进化中的模糊问题及解决途径进行了研究.     

Peat molecular fossils recording paleoclimatic change and organism replacement

The occurrence of the dominant C₂₃ n-alkane derived from bryophyte was demonstrated to be related to the cold climate, based on the GC and GC/MS analyses on a 40-cm long peat core, in which this compound exponentially varies in abundance with the depth corresponding to the well-known second Little Ice Age. Both the variation of the chemical components of modern bryophyte resulted from climatic change and the ecological data about the biological growth influenced by climate shed light on the point that the variation of this compound in the peat was related to the cold climate. This was also evidenced by the previously-reported lacustrine data. In addition, the variations of the ratios of ketones/esters and C₂₄ n-alkene/n-alkane (C_24︰1/C_24︰0) display the trend identical with that of organisms, implicating the replacement between bryophyte and monocotyledon occurring in the peat core.     

大熊猫地史分布变迁初步研究

作者从化石记录和分子生物学研究等方面介绍了大熊猫的系统演化历程及不同时期的地理分布情况.从出土的化石材料可以看出,大熊猫在地质历史上曾广泛分布于我国长江、黄河及珠江三大流域,包括了从北京周口店至两广以致东南亚一带的广大地区.更新世中、晚期是大熊猫家族演化进程中最繁盛的时期,至晚更新世末期开始转向衰落.在地史分布变迁上,自始熊猫出现以来其分布范围经历了向东、南及北方扩张的过程,而自更新世末期以来则从北、东、南三方向西退缩,现仅残存于四川盆地向青藏高原过渡的高山峡谷地带.大熊猫家族地史分布范围的变化可能既受物种自身生物学特性的影响,同时也与环境的变化息息相关.然而,不同地质历史时期影响大熊猫家族地史分布变迁的主要因素可能并不相同.气候变化和青藏高原的隆起可能是影响更新世大熊猫种群分布的主要环境因素,而自全新世以来,人类活动极大地塑造了大熊猫的空间分布格局.     

Palaeogene fossil <Emphasis Type="Italic">Populus</Emphasis> leaves from Lanzhou Basin and their palaeoclimatic significance

An angiosperm compression flora is found in Palaeogene from Lanzhou Basin and the cuticular analysis of Populus davidiana Dode in the flora is carefully made. Furthermore, the fossil cuticles are compared with the epidermal structures of extant Populus leaves growing in different environments, i.e. moist, semimoist, and semiarid to arid climatic regions. The present experiments indicate that mature leaves of P. davidiana show leaf size from big to small, leaf cuticles from thick to thin and anticlinal walls of epidermal cells from faintness to clarity along with the increase of lattudes of the plant distributions, the climatic variation from moist to arid, the annual precipitation from more to less and the annual mean temperature from high to low. The fossil P. davidiana differs from the specimens collected from Shandan in semiarid to arid climatic regions but closely resembles the Wushan leaves in a semi-moist climatic area in a lot of features. In a word, the new research may reflect that the flora lives in a semi-moist climatic environment. The present discovery of compression of Paleogene Populus davidiana is of great significance to studying vegetation types, climatic and environmental changes during the primal uplifting of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.     

Early Cambrian phosphatized blastula- and gastrula-stage animal fossils from southern Shaanxi

Marine invertebrate animal embryos and their early developmental products are of great significance to the study of taxonomy and phylogeny of early animals. A great number of phosphatized globular fossils were collected fromthe early Cambrian Kuanchuanpu Member (upper Dengying Formation), southern Shaanxi, and a nearly complete develo-pmental sequence—from a fertilized egg, via blastodisc formation, blastula development, blastodisc enlargement toward gastrulae, to tissue differentiation—can be discerned in this collection. This discovery provides unmatchable material for studies on the origin, taxonomy, radiation, and ontogeny of early metazoans.     

湘、桂两省下二叠统栖霞组的群体古生态

湘,桂两省栖霞组中的生物化石常以一定的组合类型出现,各种生物化石组合的形成都受到各种环境因素控制,因此它们具有指相意义。多种组合的存在证明了栖霞期沉积环境的多样性。对化石组合的描述和古生态分析作出其沉积环境的推论,研究这些化石组合的时空分布规律则得出该地区岩相古地理概貌。图8,参7。     

云南禄丰、贵州桐梓、陕西富县的鱼粪化石

粪化石是所有脊椎动物的排泻物。文中建议建立粪石科代替粪化石,把不同类动物的粪石均按生物命名法给以属种的名称。文内提出了5个属名,鱼粪石建立5个种。