Biodiversity of ecosystems in an arid setting: The late Albian plant communities and associated biota from eastern Iberia

Tricolpites nemejci and Senectotetradites sp. [93, 104, 111, 114–116]. This age inference updates and refines the previously proposed middle to early late Albian age, which was based on a more limited palynological data set [32]. The presence of Cicatricosisporites apicanalis, Con- tignisporites cooksoniae (Fig 8G), Gregussisporites orientalis (Fig 8F) and Nevesisporites dailyi (Fig 15) in both SJ and AP, also allows defining an intra late Albian upper limit for the age interval as none of the taxa have been recorded in strata of different age in Europe [31, 113, 117]. In addition to the biostratigraphic markers already present in SJ and AP, the lower part of the CA section also includes Reticulosporis gallicus (Fig 8A), a taxon only recorded in France in strata independently dated as late Albian [90, 118], and Microfoveolatosporis pseudoreticula- tus and Cupuliferoidaepollenites parvulus (Fig 15), both taxa presenting the oldest occurrence in strata of that age in North America and Western Europe [105, 112, 119]. A slightly younger early Cenomanian could be considered for the uppermost part of the CA section that corre- sponds to the La Hoya amber outcrop (CA-35.1–CA-35.3; Fig 5) as Echinipollis cenomanensis (Fig 9Y), Polypodiisporonites cenomanianus (Fig 8C) and Senectotetradites grossus (Fig 9AB) recorded therein have not been reported from older strata [111, 120–122]. The CA record Fig 15. Composite range chart showing selected species of biostratigraphic interest identified in the Lower Cretaceous sections from the Maestrazgo Basin. L = lower; M = middle; U = upper.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282178.g015 PLOS ONE Late Albian desert biota from Iberia PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282178 March 2, 2023 31 / 51