Brazilian Paleobotany: Past, Present, and Future Perspectives

Brazilian paleobotany began when Unger referred the first plant fossil, Psaronius brasiliensis Brongniart, collected by von Martius and von Spix around 1820, shortly after the beginning of paleobotanical sciences in Europe. In Brazil, paleobotany was developed initially by European researchers who studied fossils in distant Nordic countries. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, during the transition from the Brazilian Empire (1822–1889) to the First Republic (1889–1930), some foreign researchers visited the country to study geology and paleontology and educated young Brazilians researchers. Gradually, these scholars trained other researchers, including the first Brazilian paleobotanist (Elias Dolianiti) in the 1940s. Between the 1940s and 1960s, the discipline was characterized by the contributions of both Brazilian and foreign researchers, and several undergraduate geology courses were created. At the end of this period, postgraduate courses were initiated in some universities with a specialization in paleobotany. In the 1970s, recently graduated paleobotanists sought new knowledge in European and North American institutions. From then onwards, a continuous partnership between foreign and Brazilian researchers was established, and paleobotany matured even further, with researchers being trained in the discipline. The constant growth of this science today is attested by the 55 paleobotanists currently in research institutions across Brazil. However, there is still much material waiting to be studied, whether it be in collections or new occurrences, and this demands the formation of more specialists in the area with backgrounds in both geology and biology.