Acta Biologica Sibirica 7: 345-361, doi: 10.3897/abs.7.e76105

Phytoliths from some grasses (Poaceae) in arid lands of Xinjiang, China

Marina V. Olonova^‡, Polina D. Gudkova^§‡, Valeria D. Shiposha^‡, Elizaveta A. Kriuchkova^§, Natalia S. Mezina^‡, Mikhail Blinnikov^|

‡ Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia§ Altai State University, Barnaul, Russia| St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, United States of America

Corresponding author: Marina V. Olonova ( olonova@list.ru )

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Olonova MV, Gudkova PD, Shiposha VD, Kriuchkova EA, Mezina NS, Blinnikov M (2021) Phytoliths from some grasses (Poaceae) in arid lands of Xinjiang, China. Acta Biologica Sibirica 7: 345-361. https://doi.org/10.3897/abs.7.e76105

Abstract

Opal phytoliths, as silicon dioxide inclusions, are abundant in different parts of a plant. It is known that grasses are the most representative in this respect. The research of phytoliths, removed from 25 most common grass species in the arid and semiarid lands of the Junggar Basin and adjacent areas, has been undertaken. The visual estimation of diversity and variability of silica cells and identification of their morphological types (patterns) were also the aim of our research. Since the work is preliminary, we have emphasized on the visual estimation of silica cell variability and involved only the leaf blades in the analysis. Drawings of the revealed silica cells, characteristic of 25 species, are provided. The sig-nificant morphological diversity of phytoliths has been revealed, as well as their taxonomic similarity at the level of subfamilies. These data can be used for the identification of phytoliths from sediments.

Keywords

Central Asia, deserts, plant anatomy, silicon dioxide inclusion