Ancient Grape seeds shed light on how dinosaur extinction helped
Whether you’ve snacked on raisins or enjoyed a glass of wine, you have the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago to thank for it. In a new discovery from the journal Nature Plants, researchers discovered fossil grape seeds ranging from 60 to 19 million years ago in Colombia, Panama, and Peru. One species represents the earliest known example of the grape family in the Western Hemisphere. The fossil seeds shed light on how the grape family spread following the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Soft tissue including fruits is rarely preserved as fossils. As a result, our understanding of ancient plants especially fruits comes often from seeds which are more likely to be preserved as fossils. The earliest known grape seeds ever discovered were from India and dated back to 66 million years ago. That coincides with the asteroid that hit earth and triggered a global mass extinction event.
The team of researchers hypothesize that the extinction of the dinosaurs may have aided the forests and that helped grape seeds flourish. Large animals roam through the forest and can even knock trees down. As a result, forests then would be more open than they are today. However, without lumbering dinosaurs to prune the trees, some tropical forests, such as those in South America, become more crowded, leading too layers of trees creating a canopy.
