Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (Mar 2023)
The first fossil seed of Ampelopsis (Vitaceae) in South China
Abstract
Ampelopsis Michx. (Vitaceae) contains more than 30 species and is discontinuously distributed in Eurasia, North America, and Central America. China hosts an abundance of Ampelopsis species. Until now, fossil records of Ampelopsis have been reported only from the Paleocene to the Pleistocene of Europe, the Eocene to the Pliocene of Asia, and the Eocene to the Miocene of North America. Although Ampelopsis is abundant and widespread in China today, no fossils of Ampelopsis have so far been found there, except for fossil seed from the Upper Miocene of Yunnan. In this study, a fossil seed of Ampelopsis japonica (Thunb.) Makino was recovered from the Upper Pleistocene of the Maoming Basin, Guangdong province. It is the first Ampelopsis fossil found in South China. This finding shows that Ampelopsis was distributed in the low latitudes of South China in the Late Pleistocene. Global cooling during the last glaciation might have led to the southward spread of the genus to the low-latitude areas of South China. According to the structural characteristics of our fossil, it is speculated that the aborted ovule, which is common in the fruits of extant Ampelopsis, existed in this genus in the Late Pleistocene.
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