PLANT-ANIMAL-FUNGAL INTERACTIONS IN EARLY DEVONIAN TRIMEROPHYTES FROM GASPE, CANADA

Permineralized branchlets of Early Devonian Psilophyton and related trimerophytes sustained wounds that suggest the activity of animals, perhaps arthropods, with chewing and sucking mouthparts. Plant responses to injury were multiplication of cells beneath the wound, enlargement and lysing of those cells in some cases, and/or the formation of a protective tissue, a periderm. These reactions demonstrate that the plants were alive when injured. Presumed coprolites provide indirect evidence of the coexistence of plants and animals although the latter are lacking in the material. Spores, but no hyphae, assignable to Zygomycota demonstrate the presence of fungi in the community. Vascular plants, animals (? arthropods), and fungi apparently interacted freely in early terrestrial ecosystems.