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Devonian landscape heterogeneity recorded by a giant fungus

¹ Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
² Department of Paleobiology, NHB MRC 121, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20560, USA
³ Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5251 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, D.C. 20015, USA
⁴ Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
⁵ Department of Paleobiology, NHB MRC 121, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20560, USA

The enigmatic Paleozoic fossil Prototaxites Dawson 1859 consists of tree-like trunks as long as 8 m constructed of interwoven tubes <50 mm in diameter. Prototaxites specimens from five localities differ from contemporaneous vascular plants by exhibiting a carbon isotopic range, within and between localities, of as much as 13 ¹³C. Pyrolysis–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry highlights compositional differences between Prototaxites and co-occurring plant fossils and supports interpretation of isotopic distinctions as biological rather than diagenetic in origin. Such a large isotopic range is difficult to reconcile with an autotrophic metabolism, suggesting instead that, consistent with anatomy-based interpretation as a fungus, Prototaxites was a heterotroph that lived on isotopically heterogeneous substrates. Light isotopic values of Prototaxites approximate those of vascular plants from the same localities; in contrast, heavy extremes seen in the Lower Devonian appear to reflect consumption of primary producers with carbon-concentrating mechanisms, such as cryptobiotic soil crusts, or possibly bryophytes. Prototaxites biogeochemistry thus suggests that a biologically heterogeneous mosaic of primary producers characterized land surfaces well into the vascular plant era.

Key Words: Prototaxites • terrestrial ecosystems • isotope geochemistry • Paleozoic • paleobotany • paleoecology

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