Fig. 1.

Gaps and rises in the branching frequencies correlate with floral changes in the Palaeophytic and Cenophytic. Shifts in body size and body form correlate with the advance of vascular plants in the Devonian and forests in the Carboniferous (black and orange arrows), but most shifts in trophic level (red arrows) occurred in the Cenophytic, parallel to the evolution of angiosperms. The Permian-Tertiary mass extinction is not reflected in the branching frequency, but floral changes such as the extinction of progymnosperms and the diversification of lignophytes at the Devonian-Mississippian boundary and the collapse of rainforest and swamp vegetation in the Kasimovian correlate with gaps in oribatid mite radiations. In contrast, radiations of oribatid mite lineages (50% of branching events) correlate with the advent of angiosperm and the evolution of modern plant communities