Climate change and mercury pollution found to stress plants for millions of years

At the end of the Triassic period (201 million years ago), the Earth's climate changed drastically with massive occurrence of volcanic eruptions. This period marked a significant change in the species composition of plants. A new study published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, co-authored by Tomáš Navrátil and Jan Rohovec of the Department of Environmental Geochemistry, explains geological conditions leading to the changes in the biota. By combining paleoecological and geochemical approaches, we have gained insight into a complex and long-term sequence of events in which global warming of the paleoclimate and an increase in the concentration of toxic metal mercury, released into the atmosphere during volcanic eruptions, acted together as stressors. As a result, trees were replaced by ferns during the 1.3 million-year extinction interval.