Peter Crane

About

Peter Crane is a Senior Research Scientist at Yale School of the Environment. His work focuses on the diversity of plant life, including its origin and fossil history, current status, conservation, and use. He served as the Carl W. Knobloch Jr. Dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (now Yale School of the Environment) from 2009 until 2016. Prior to his tenure at Yale, he was the director of the Field Museum in Chicago from 1992 to 1999, where he established the Office of Environmental and Conservation Programs and the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change. From 1999 to 2006, he was the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he strengthened and expanded the gardens’ scientific, conservation, and public programs. Dean Crane has been elected to several prestigious scientific societies, including the Royal Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the German Academy Leopoldina. He was knighted in the U.K. for services to horticulture and conservation in 2004. Currently, he serves on the boards of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. He holds a B.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Reading, U.K.

Research topics

• Biology
• Botany
• Paleontology
• Geology
• Ecology

Selected publications

• Mesozoic cupules and the origin of the angiosperm second integument

  Nature · 2021-05-26 · 109 citations

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  PublisherDOI

• Reconstructing Krassilovia mongolica supports recognition of a new and unusual group of Mesozoic conifers

  PLoS ONE · 2020-01-15 · 32 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Previously unrecognized anatomical features of the cone scales of the enigmatic Early Cretaceous conifer Krassilovia mongolica include the presence of transversely oriented paracytic stomata, which is unusual for all other extinct and extant conifers. Identical stomata are present on co-occurring broad, linear, multiveined leaves assigned to Podozamites harrisii, providing evidence that K. mongolica and P. harrisii are the seed cones and leaves of the same extinct plant. Phylogenetic analyses of…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A permineralized Early Cretaceous lycopsid from China and the evolution of crown clubmosses

  New Phytologist · 2022-01-04 · 14 citations

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  Lycopodiaceae are one of three surviving families of lycopsids, a lineage of vascular plants with a fossil history dating to at least the Early Devonian or perhaps the Late Silurian (c. 415 Ma). Many fossils have been linked to crown Lycopodiaceae, but the lack of well-preserved material has hindered definitive recognition of this group in the paleobotanical record. New, exceptionally well-preserved permineralized lycopsid fossils from the Early Cretaceous (125.6 ± 1.0 Ma) of Inner Mongolia, Chi…

  PublisherDOI

• The Cretaceous diversification of angiosperms: perspectives from mesofossils

  Geological Society London Special Publications · 2024-02-02 · 13 citations

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  Abstract The plant fossil record during the Cretaceous documents a major transition in the dominant group of terrestrial autotrophs, as plant communities from the earlier Mesozoic were transformed by the appearance and rapid diversification of angiosperms. This transformation began in the Early Cretaceous, continued through the Late Cretaceous and led ultimately to the dominance of angiosperms in most terrestrial ecosystems today, which had profound consequences for the other organisms inhabitin…

  PublisherDOI

• Silicified cupulate seed-bearing structures from the Early Cretaceous of eastern Inner Mongolia, China: rethinking the corystosperm concept

  Journal of Systematic Palaeontology · 2022-11-15 · 13 citations

  articleSenior author

  The group referred to informally as the corystosperms, described initially based on compression fossils from the Triassic of Gondwana, have long been considered critical extinct plants for understanding seed plant phylogeny, the evolution of seed plant reproductive structures and the relationships of angiosperms. Here we describe a new genus and species of corystosperm seed-bearing structure, Jarudia zhoui gen. et sp. nov., based on abundant silicified material collected from the newly discovere…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Systematics, Floral Structure and Reproductive Biology of Mid-Cretaceous Magnoliid Angiosperms

  NSF · $211k · 1991–1994

• Floral Structure and Systematics of Mid-Cretaceous Angiosperms

  NSF · $110k · 1988–1991

• Support for Care and Use of the Systematic Collection of Mazon Creek Fossil Animals and Plants

  NSF · $153k · 1987–1990

Frequent coauthors

• Else Marie Friis

  Swedish Museum of Natural History

  250 shared

• Kaj Raunsgaard Pedersen

  Aarhus University

  225 shared

• Patrick S. Herendeen

  Chicago Botanic Garden

  155 shared

• Gongle Shi

  Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology

  81 shared

• Paul Kenrick

  Natural History Museum

  70 shared

• William A. DiMichele

  67 shared

• Nicholas Rowe

  Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement

  66 shared

• Fabiany Herrera

  Field Museum of Natural History

  65 shared

Education

• PhD, Department of Botany

  University of Reading

  1981

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• Foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
• Foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• Member of the German Academy Leopoldina
• Knighted in the U.K. for services to horticulture and conser…

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