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Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni
The Ediacaran macrofossil Charnia masoni Ford is perhaps the most iconic member of the Rangeomorpha: a group of seemingly sessile, frondose organisms that dominates late Ediacaran benthic, deep‐marine fossil assemblages. Despite C. masoni exhibiting broad palaeogeographical and stratigraphical range...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6472560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31007942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1234 |
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author | Dunn, Frances S. Wilby, Philip R. Kenchington, Charlotte G. Grazhdankin, Dmitriy V. Donoghue, Philip C. J. Liu, Alexander G. |
author_facet | Dunn, Frances S. Wilby, Philip R. Kenchington, Charlotte G. Grazhdankin, Dmitriy V. Donoghue, Philip C. J. Liu, Alexander G. |
author_sort | Dunn, Frances S. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Ediacaran macrofossil Charnia masoni Ford is perhaps the most iconic member of the Rangeomorpha: a group of seemingly sessile, frondose organisms that dominates late Ediacaran benthic, deep‐marine fossil assemblages. Despite C. masoni exhibiting broad palaeogeographical and stratigraphical ranges, there have been few morphological studies that consider the variation observed among populations of specimens derived from multiple global localities. We present an analysis of C. masoni that evaluates specimens from the UK, Canada and Russia, representing the largest morphological study of this taxon to date. We describe substantial morphological variation within C. masoni and present a new morphological model for this species that has significant implications both for interpretation of rangeomorph architecture, and potentially for existing taxonomic schemes. Previous reconstructions of Charnia include assumptions regarding the presence of structures seen in other rangeomorphs (e.g. an internal stalk) and of homogeneity in higher order branch morphology; observations that are not borne out by our investigations. We describe variation in the morphology of third and fourth order branches, as well as variation in gross structure near the base of the frond. The diagnosis of Charnia masoni is emended to take account of these new features. These findings highlight the need for large‐scale analyses of rangeomorph morphology in order to better understand the biology of this long‐enigmatic group. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6472560 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64725602019-04-19 Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni Dunn, Frances S. Wilby, Philip R. Kenchington, Charlotte G. Grazhdankin, Dmitriy V. Donoghue, Philip C. J. Liu, Alexander G. Pap Palaeontol Original Articles The Ediacaran macrofossil Charnia masoni Ford is perhaps the most iconic member of the Rangeomorpha: a group of seemingly sessile, frondose organisms that dominates late Ediacaran benthic, deep‐marine fossil assemblages. Despite C. masoni exhibiting broad palaeogeographical and stratigraphical ranges, there have been few morphological studies that consider the variation observed among populations of specimens derived from multiple global localities. We present an analysis of C. masoni that evaluates specimens from the UK, Canada and Russia, representing the largest morphological study of this taxon to date. We describe substantial morphological variation within C. masoni and present a new morphological model for this species that has significant implications both for interpretation of rangeomorph architecture, and potentially for existing taxonomic schemes. Previous reconstructions of Charnia include assumptions regarding the presence of structures seen in other rangeomorphs (e.g. an internal stalk) and of homogeneity in higher order branch morphology; observations that are not borne out by our investigations. We describe variation in the morphology of third and fourth order branches, as well as variation in gross structure near the base of the frond. The diagnosis of Charnia masoni is emended to take account of these new features. These findings highlight the need for large‐scale analyses of rangeomorph morphology in order to better understand the biology of this long‐enigmatic group. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018-09-11 2019-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6472560/ /pubmed/31007942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1234 Text en © 2018 The Authors. Papers in Palaeontology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Palaeontological Association. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Dunn, Frances S. Wilby, Philip R. Kenchington, Charlotte G. Grazhdankin, Dmitriy V. Donoghue, Philip C. J. Liu, Alexander G. Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni |
title | Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni
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title_full | Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni
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title_fullStr | Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni
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title_full_unstemmed | Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni
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title_short | Anatomy of the Ediacaran rangeomorph Charnia masoni
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title_sort | anatomy of the ediacaran rangeomorph charnia masoni |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6472560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31007942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1234 |
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