Navid Navidi-Izad,^1,2,* Hossein Hashemi,^1,**,*** Borja Cascales-Miñana,^2,**** Sylvie Régnier,^2,***** Charles H. Wellmanhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7511-0464,^3,****** Thomas Servaishttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4089-7874<sup>2,*******

1</sup>Department of Geology, Faculty of Earth Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
²CNRS, University of Lille, Lille, France
³Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

^*Navid Navidi-Izad is currently a PhD student at the Department of Earth Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran, working on the biostratigraphy, palaeoecology, and palaeobiogeography of the Lower Palaeozoic palynomorphs of northern Iran. He received his MSc in stratigraphy and palaeontology in 2013 from Tehran University, Iran. Navid visited the Evo-Eco-Paléo unit of University of Lille, France, for an 8-month sabbatical leave in 2018 and 2019.
^**CONTACT Hossein Hashemi ✉ h.hashemi@khu.ac.ir Department of Geology, Faculty of Earth Sciences, Kharazmi University, 49 Mofatteh Avenue, Tehran 15614, Iran.
^***Hossein Hashemi has been an associate professor in the Department of Geology, Faculty of Earth Sciences, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran since 1999. He obtained his MSc degree from Tehran University in 1990, working on Early Permian palynomorphs from the Alborz Ranges, northern Iran. Awarded a PhD scholarship by the Australian government, he continued research on Palaeozoic palynomorphs and received his doctoral degree from The University of Queensland in 1997. He is principally interested in the systematics and stratigraphic applications of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic palynomorphs.
^****Borja Cascales-Miñana After graduating in Spain and post-docs in France and Belgium, Borja Cascales-Miñana joined the CNRS as research fellow in 2017. He works on the early evolution of vascular plants and the Paleozoic floras. He has a special interest in the study of the first terrestrial ecosystems and the great biotic crises of vegetation. His activity involves the use of fossil-based data analysis to elucidate the plant dynamics through time, as well as regular fieldworks for the study of plant macrofossils and spore diversity.
^*****Sylvie Regnier Graduated as a biotechnology technician and started working in the University Hospital Calmette at Lille (France) in the hematology lab (specializing in chemoresistance in Acute Myeloid Leukemia), before joining a private laboratory of soil, water and air analyses. She arrived in the Earth Science Department of the University of Lille in 2006. After training in the palynology laboratories of Lille and Liège (Belgium), she now specializes in palynomorph and microfossil extraction techniques, and currently works on optimizing the methods of palynomorph extraction (improving time and quality). She is also responsible for the SEM platform of the palaeontology research team of the Evo-Eco-Paleo CNRS research unit that she integrated in 2017.
^******Charles Wellman is Professor of Palaeobiology in the Department of Animal and, Plant Sciences of the University of Sheffield, UK. He received a B.Sc. from the University of Southampton in 1987 and a Ph.D. from Cardiff University in 1991 (A NERC CASE award with the Natural History Museum, London). Charles' Ph.D. research involved a study of early land plant microfossils from Scottish Silurian-Devonian ‘Lower Old Red Sandstone' deposits. Subsequently Charles’ research has diversified to investigate various aspects of the colonisation of the land, including work on both fossil and living plants, and a consideration of what lived on the land before the land plants.
^*******Thomas Servais is a research director at the French Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS). He was trained as a geologist at the universities of Namur and Liege in Belgium, and received a PhD on Ordovician acritarchs in 1993. After postdoctoral studies in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom, Thomas was recruited as a CNRS research associate at the University of Lille in 1997. His research is focused on Lower Palaeozoic microphytoplankton. Thomas is currently vice-chairman of the International Subcommission of Ordovician Stratigraphy (ISOS) and co-leader of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) 653 ‘The onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event’ (2016-2020).