期刊
NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
卷 1, 期 10, 页码 1455-1464出版社
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0301-9
关键词
-
资金
- CNPq-Conselho Nacional Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico- Brazil [451245/2012-1]
- NERC Isotope Geoscience Facilities Steering Committee grant [IP-1560-0515]
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/L011409/2, NE/L501554/1]
- Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), Brazil [2009/02312-4, 2010/02677-0, 2013/17835-8, 2016-06114-6]
- NSERC discovery grant
- St. Anne's College, University of Oxford
- NERC [nigl010001, NE/P013775/1, NE/L011409/2] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/L011409/2, nigl010001] Funding Source: researchfish
The evolutionary events during the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition (similar to 541 Myr ago) are unparalleled in Earth history. The fossil record suggests that most extant animal phyla appeared in a geologically brief interval, with the oldest unequivocal bilaterian body fossils found in the Early Cambrian. Molecular clocks and biomarkers provide independent estimates for the timing of animal origins, and both suggest a cryptic Neoproterozoic history for Metazoa that extends considerably beyond the Cambrian fossil record. We report an assemblage of ichnofossils from Ediacaran-Cambrian siltstones in Brazil, alongside U-Pb radioisotopic dates that constrain the age of the oldest specimens to 555-542 Myr. X-ray microtomography reveals three-dimensionally preserved traces ranging from 50 to 600 mu m in diameter, indicative of small-bodied, meiofaunal tracemakers. Burrow morphologies suggest they were created by a nematoid-like organism that used undulating locomotion to move through the sediment. This assemblage demonstrates animal-sediment interactions in the latest Ediacaran period, and provides the oldest known fossil evidence for meiofaunal bilaterians. Our discovery highlights meiofaunal ichnofossils as a hitherto unexplored window for tracking animal evolution in deep time, and reveals that both meiofaunal and macrofaunal bilaterians began to explore infaunal niches during the late Ediacaran.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据