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Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump

The biological pump is crucial for transporting nutrients fixed by surface-dwelling primary producers to demersal animal communities. Indeed, the establishment of an efficient biological pump was likely a key factor enabling the diversification of animals over 500 Myr ago during the Cambrian explosi...

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Autores principales: Pates, Stephen, Daley, Allison C., Legg, David A., Rahman, Imran A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8220267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34157876
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0464
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author Pates, Stephen
Daley, Allison C.
Legg, David A.
Rahman, Imran A.
author_facet Pates, Stephen
Daley, Allison C.
Legg, David A.
Rahman, Imran A.
author_sort Pates, Stephen
collection PubMed
description The biological pump is crucial for transporting nutrients fixed by surface-dwelling primary producers to demersal animal communities. Indeed, the establishment of an efficient biological pump was likely a key factor enabling the diversification of animals over 500 Myr ago during the Cambrian explosion. The modern biological pump operates through two main vectors: the passive sinking of aggregates of organic matter, and the active vertical migration of animals. The coevolution of eukaryotes and sinking aggregates is well understood for the Proterozoic and Cambrian; however, little attention has been paid to the establishment of the vertical migration of animals. Here we investigate the morphological variation and hydrodynamic performance of the Cambrian euarthropod Isoxys. We combine elliptical Fourier analysis of carapace shape with computational fluid dynamics simulations to demonstrate that Isoxys species likely occupied a variety of niches in Cambrian oceans, including vertical migrants, providing the first quantitative evidence that some Cambrian animals were adapted for vertical movement in the water column. Vertical migration was one of several early Cambrian metazoan innovations that led to the biological pump taking on a modern-style architecture over 500 Myr ago.
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spelling pubmed-82202672021-06-25 Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump Pates, Stephen Daley, Allison C. Legg, David A. Rahman, Imran A. Proc Biol Sci Palaeobiology The biological pump is crucial for transporting nutrients fixed by surface-dwelling primary producers to demersal animal communities. Indeed, the establishment of an efficient biological pump was likely a key factor enabling the diversification of animals over 500 Myr ago during the Cambrian explosion. The modern biological pump operates through two main vectors: the passive sinking of aggregates of organic matter, and the active vertical migration of animals. The coevolution of eukaryotes and sinking aggregates is well understood for the Proterozoic and Cambrian; however, little attention has been paid to the establishment of the vertical migration of animals. Here we investigate the morphological variation and hydrodynamic performance of the Cambrian euarthropod Isoxys. We combine elliptical Fourier analysis of carapace shape with computational fluid dynamics simulations to demonstrate that Isoxys species likely occupied a variety of niches in Cambrian oceans, including vertical migrants, providing the first quantitative evidence that some Cambrian animals were adapted for vertical movement in the water column. Vertical migration was one of several early Cambrian metazoan innovations that led to the biological pump taking on a modern-style architecture over 500 Myr ago. The Royal Society 2021-06-30 2021-06-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8220267/ /pubmed/34157876 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0464 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Palaeobiology
Pates, Stephen
Daley, Allison C.
Legg, David A.
Rahman, Imran A.
Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump
title Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump
title_full Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump
title_fullStr Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump
title_full_unstemmed Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump
title_short Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump
title_sort vertically migrating isoxys and the early cambrian biological pump
topic Palaeobiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8220267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34157876
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0464
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