Article: Interrelationships of early terrestrial arthropods and plants

At the dawn of terrestrial life some remarkably close interrelationships between arthropods, vascular plants, and fungi existed and promoted co-evolutionary developments which, in the same or analogous forms, have since remained fundamental in the functioning of ecosystems. The fossil record and hypotheses on phylogenies are examined in terms of functional morphology. Spore-eating and disseminating arthropods existed at the same time as the spores of terrestrial plants and fungi became more diverse and obtained characters indicative of protection from and/or dissemination by arthropods. An appendix discusses other aspects of the functional morphology of spores. Arborescence and structures on the stems of plants precede the arrival of alate arthropods, and may have been initially protective. Subsequent events indicate a dispersal role of those features for the insects and the spores they carried. Further evidence suggests that the first terrestrial arthropods were the cause of lesions described from Devonian plants. Such lesions could then have become sites for fungal and other infections. The parasitic, first terrestrial fungi show similar protective and dispersal relations with arthropods as those shown by vascular plants.