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Early Eocene plant diversity and dynamics in the Falkland flora, Okanagan Highlands, British Columbia, Canada

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Abstract

The early Eocene fossil localities of the Okanagan Highlands in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington State, USA, span the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, the warmest period of the Cenozoic, and reflect mild but equable upland climates (mean annual temperature <15°C, cold month mean temperature >0°C). The Okanagan Highlands region has been identified as a centre of temperate plant family diversification in the northern hemisphere during the early Eocene. Here, we test the hypothesis of mid-latitude high diversity through rarefaction analysis of unbiased census collections from the Okanagan Highlands Falkland fossil locality, demonstrating levels of diversity similar to those documented at hyperdiverse Eocene sites in South America when adjusted for sample size. An explanation for this diversity may lie in the upland character of the Falkland site, as altitudinal gradients provide a mosaic of microhabitats through interacting effects of topography and climate. Fine-scale trends are also examined within the Falkland site, demonstrating a shift in plant community composition over time to a more diverse flora, although the dominant taxa persist through the section in varying levels of abundance. Intra-site patterns in plant community structure and composition are attributed to a combination of environmental factors, including disturbance and microhabitat diversity.

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Acknowledgements

This paper derives from a PhD thesis by RYS, supported through a Canada Graduate Scholarship to RYS from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and NSERC Discovery grants to DRG (DG 311934) and JFB (DG 1334). The authors would like to thank R. Wilson, B. Wilson, H. Wilson, S. Krasowski, K. Stouffer, J. Walberg and L. Johnson for assistance in the field. Thanks are extended to our colleagues S.B. Archibald, P.T. Moss, and R.W. Mathewes for helpful discussions regarding the fossil biota of the site. The authors thank P. Wilf and K. Johnson for sharing raw abundance data for Republic dicot specimens. R. Hebda and J. Kerik at the Royal British Columbia Museum were helpful in obtaining permission to collect at Falkland. We thank D. Peppe and two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, 114 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5E2, Canada

    Robin Y. Smith

  2. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, 114 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5E2, Canada

    James F. Basinger

  3. Department of Biology, Brandon University, 270 18th Street, Brandon, MB, R7A 6A9, Canada

    David R. Greenwood

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  1. Robin Y. Smith
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Correspondence to Robin Y. Smith.

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Smith, R.Y., Basinger, J.F. & Greenwood, D.R. Early Eocene plant diversity and dynamics in the Falkland flora, Okanagan Highlands, British Columbia, Canada. Palaeobio Palaeoenv 92, 309–328 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-011-0061-5

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