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Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata

The Ediacara Biota represents the oldest fossil evidence for the appearance of animals but linking these taxa to specific clades has proved challenging. Dickinsonia is an abundant, apparently bilaterally symmetrical Ediacara fossil with uncertain affinities. We identified and measured key morphologi...

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Autores principales: Evans, Scott D., Droser, Mary L., Gehling, James G.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28520741
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176874
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author Evans, Scott D.
Droser, Mary L.
Gehling, James G.
author_facet Evans, Scott D.
Droser, Mary L.
Gehling, James G.
author_sort Evans, Scott D.
collection PubMed
description The Ediacara Biota represents the oldest fossil evidence for the appearance of animals but linking these taxa to specific clades has proved challenging. Dickinsonia is an abundant, apparently bilaterally symmetrical Ediacara fossil with uncertain affinities. We identified and measured key morphological features of over 900 specimens of Dickinsonia costata from the Ediacara Member, South Australia to characterize patterns in growth and morphology. Here we show that development in Dickinsonia costata was surprisingly highly regulated to maintain an ovoid shape via terminal addition and the predictable expansion of modules. This result, along with other characters found in Dickinsonia suggests that it does not belong within known animal groups, but that it utilized some of the developmental gene networks of bilaterians, a result predicted by gene sequencing of basal metazoans but previously unidentified in the fossil record. Dickinsonia thus represents an extinct clade located between sponges and the last common ancestor of Protostomes and Deuterostomes, and likely belongs within the Eumetazoa.
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spelling pubmed-54351722017-05-26 Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata Evans, Scott D. Droser, Mary L. Gehling, James G. PLoS One Research Article The Ediacara Biota represents the oldest fossil evidence for the appearance of animals but linking these taxa to specific clades has proved challenging. Dickinsonia is an abundant, apparently bilaterally symmetrical Ediacara fossil with uncertain affinities. We identified and measured key morphological features of over 900 specimens of Dickinsonia costata from the Ediacara Member, South Australia to characterize patterns in growth and morphology. Here we show that development in Dickinsonia costata was surprisingly highly regulated to maintain an ovoid shape via terminal addition and the predictable expansion of modules. This result, along with other characters found in Dickinsonia suggests that it does not belong within known animal groups, but that it utilized some of the developmental gene networks of bilaterians, a result predicted by gene sequencing of basal metazoans but previously unidentified in the fossil record. Dickinsonia thus represents an extinct clade located between sponges and the last common ancestor of Protostomes and Deuterostomes, and likely belongs within the Eumetazoa. Public Library of Science 2017-05-17 /pmc/articles/PMC5435172/ /pubmed/28520741 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176874 Text en © 2017 Evans et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Evans, Scott D.
Droser, Mary L.
Gehling, James G.
Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata
title Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata
title_full Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata
title_fullStr Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata
title_full_unstemmed Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata
title_short Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata
title_sort highly regulated growth and development of the ediacara macrofossil dickinsonia costata
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435172/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28520741
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176874
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