Nurse logs: A common seedling strategy in the Permian Cathaysian flora

Nurse logs are common in modern forests from boreal to temperate and tropical ecosystems. However, the evolution of the nurse-log strategy remains elusive because of their rare occurrence in the fossil record. We report seven coniferous nurse logs from lowermost to uppermost Permian strata of northern China that have been colonized by conifer and sphenophyllalean roots. These roots are associated with two types of arthropod coprolites and fungal remains. Our study provides the first glimpse into plant-plant facilitative relationships between late Paleozoic gymnosperms and sphenopsids. Detritivorous arthropods and fungi appear to have been crucial for the utilization of nurse logs in Permian forests. The phylogenetically distant roots demonstrate that nurse-log interaction was a sophisticated seedling strategy in late Paleozoic humid tropical forests, and this approach may have been adopted and developed by a succession of plant groups leading to its wide representation in modern forest ecosystems.