Re: Extinction

[John Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>]

On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 Angella711@cs.com wrote:

>     On Wed. March 29, 2000, John Bois wrote:
> And they make the point that nothing much else happens _except_ to
> non-avian dinos.
>     Will  _someone_ please think about the plants!  K. Johnson from the 
> Denver Museum did a study that showed an 80% broad leaf plant extinction.  If 
> plants and dinosaurs can't hibernate, and mammals can...I wish I had the ref 
> for this plant study.  The point is, whole biomes died out.

Hypothesis: dinosaurs were keystone species; with their demise followed
the demise of plant species whose fruit they spread, whose seeds they
spread or otherwise helped germinate.
Also, plant distribution studies from one area may have nothing to do with
the area in question.  In any case, the relative lack of impact on _all_
fossil species of terrestrial vertebrates (except non-avian
dinosaurs) hardly supports your position of "whole biomes died out".