Importance of the Angiosperm Fossil Record for the Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction

In countries such as Mexico, fossil plants has been little used to reconstruct paleoenvironments and paleoclimates, although in other countries different methods have been developed to infer these environmental and climatic conditions in the past. The work on this subject has been carried out by associating fossil organisms (proxies) with their closest living relatives in a general way. Although in recent years a new generation in the paleontology of Mexico is focusing on palaeoecological studies, using ecometric elements (the foliar structure, the anatomical characters in woods). Therefore, this paper summarizes some of the work that has been done and highlights the potential of using methodologies (proxies vs. ecometrics) in Mexican fossil material.