Ediacaran biozones identified with network analysis provide evidence for pulsed extinctions of early complex life

A. D. Muscente (), Natalia Bykova, Thomas H. Boag, Luis A. Buatois, M. Gabriela Mángano, Ahmed Eleish, Anirudh Prabhu, Feifei Pan, Michael B. Meyer, James D. Schiffbauer, Peter Fox, Robert M. Hazen and Andrew H. Knoll
Additional contact information
A. D. Muscente: Harvard University
Natalia Bykova: Siberian Branch Russian Academy of Sciences
Thomas H. Boag: Stanford University
Luis A. Buatois: University of Saskatchewan
M. Gabriela Mángano: University of Saskatchewan
Ahmed Eleish: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jonsson-Rowland Science Center
Anirudh Prabhu: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jonsson-Rowland Science Center
Feifei Pan: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jonsson-Rowland Science Center
Michael B. Meyer: Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
James D. Schiffbauer: University of Missouri
Peter Fox: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jonsson-Rowland Science Center
Robert M. Hazen: Carnegie Institution for Science
Andrew H. Knoll: Harvard University

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Rocks of Ediacaran age (~635–541 Ma) contain the oldest fossils of large, complex organisms and their behaviors. These fossils document developmental and ecological innovations, and suggest that extinctions helped to shape the trajectory of early animal evolution. Conventional methods divide Ediacaran macrofossil localities into taxonomically distinct clusters, which may represent evolutionary, environmental, or preservational variation. Here, we investigate these possibilities with network analysis of body and trace fossil occurrences. By partitioning multipartite networks of taxa, paleoenvironments, and geologic formations into community units, we distinguish between biostratigraphic zones and paleoenvironmentally restricted biotopes, and provide empirically robust and statistically significant evidence for a global, cosmopolitan assemblage unique to terminal Ediacaran strata. The assemblage is taxonomically depauperate but includes fossils of recognizable eumetazoans, which lived between two episodes of biotic turnover. These turnover events were the first major extinctions of complex life and paved the way for the Cambrian radiation of animals.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08837-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-08837-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08837-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().