544


Journal of Paleontology 92(4):525–545


based on more than 40 specimens collected from the Middle Jurassic Xishanyao Formation of Sandaoling, Hami, Xinjiang, NW China. The study of their leaf morphology and cuticular features represents the first time that cycadophyte plant fossils have been characterized in detail from this formation. Our specimens from Xinjiang, China confirmed the exis-


tence and elaborated the degree of variation of anastomosing veins of Nilssoniopteris, and an emended diagnosis is thus provided for this genus. We summarized the geographical distributions of all 45


Jurassic species of Nilssoniopteris and discovered that during the Jurassic time the genus first experienced a diversification and distribution expansion, which was followed by a sudden decline in both diversity and geographic range in the Late Jurassic. Our brief paleoclimatic reconstruction suggests that Nilssoniopteris might have been growing not only in subtropical regions, as the living cycads, but also in warm climatic regions, probably under different hydrological/humidity conditions.


Acknowledgments


This study was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC: 40372021), the Key Research Pro- gram of PetroChina (2014A-0216), the International Geological Correlation Program (IGCP-632), and the State Key Basic Research Program of China (2012CB822003). We thank Q.-Z. Hou from Petrochina Tuha Oilfield Company for his help in field work,X.-D. Liu fromResearch Institute of PetroleumExploration andDevelopment, Petrochina for her assistance in SEMoperation, and A. Kiritchkova for providing rare literature. H. Yang from Bryant University provided fruitful discussions and invaluable suggestions. We also thank M.E. Popa and C. Pott for their constructive review comments and suggestions for the manuscript.


Accessibility of supplemental data


Data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: http://doi. org/10.5061/dryad.0bs64


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