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Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition

The Ediacara Biota—the oldest communities of complex, macroscopic fossils—consists of three temporally distinct assemblages: the Avalon (ca. 575–560 Ma), White Sea (ca. 560–550 Ma), and Nama (ca. 550–539 Ma). Generic diversity varies among assemblages, with a notable decline at the transition from W...

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Autores principales: Evans, Scott D., Tu, Chenyi, Rizzo, Adriana, Surprenant, Rachel L., Boan, Phillip C., McCandless, Heather, Marshall, Nathan, Xiao, Shuhai, Droser, Mary L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9674242/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36343248
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2207475119
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author Evans, Scott D.
Tu, Chenyi
Rizzo, Adriana
Surprenant, Rachel L.
Boan, Phillip C.
McCandless, Heather
Marshall, Nathan
Xiao, Shuhai
Droser, Mary L.
author_facet Evans, Scott D.
Tu, Chenyi
Rizzo, Adriana
Surprenant, Rachel L.
Boan, Phillip C.
McCandless, Heather
Marshall, Nathan
Xiao, Shuhai
Droser, Mary L.
author_sort Evans, Scott D.
collection PubMed
description The Ediacara Biota—the oldest communities of complex, macroscopic fossils—consists of three temporally distinct assemblages: the Avalon (ca. 575–560 Ma), White Sea (ca. 560–550 Ma), and Nama (ca. 550–539 Ma). Generic diversity varies among assemblages, with a notable decline at the transition from White Sea to Nama. Preservation and sampling biases, biotic replacement, and environmental perturbation have been proposed as potential mechanisms for this drop in diversity. Here, we compile a global database of the Ediacara Biota, specifically targeting taphonomic and paleoecological characters, to test these hypotheses. Major ecological shifts in feeding mode, life habit, and tiering level accompany an increase in generic richness between the Avalon and White Sea assemblages. We find that ∼80% of White Sea taxa are absent from the Nama interval, comparable to loss during Phanerozoic mass extinctions. The paleolatitudes, depositional environments, and preservational modes that characterize the White Sea assemblage are well represented in the Nama, indicating that this decline is not the result of sampling bias. Counter to expectations of the biotic replacement model, there are minimal ecological differences between these two assemblages. However, taxa that disappear exhibit a variety of morphological and behavioral characters consistent with an environmentally driven extinction event. The preferential survival of taxa with high surface area relative to volume may suggest that this was related to reduced global oceanic oxygen availability. Thus, our data support a link between Ediacaran biotic turnover and environmental change, similar to other major mass extinctions in the geologic record.
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spelling pubmed-96742422023-05-07 Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition Evans, Scott D. Tu, Chenyi Rizzo, Adriana Surprenant, Rachel L. Boan, Phillip C. McCandless, Heather Marshall, Nathan Xiao, Shuhai Droser, Mary L. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences The Ediacara Biota—the oldest communities of complex, macroscopic fossils—consists of three temporally distinct assemblages: the Avalon (ca. 575–560 Ma), White Sea (ca. 560–550 Ma), and Nama (ca. 550–539 Ma). Generic diversity varies among assemblages, with a notable decline at the transition from White Sea to Nama. Preservation and sampling biases, biotic replacement, and environmental perturbation have been proposed as potential mechanisms for this drop in diversity. Here, we compile a global database of the Ediacara Biota, specifically targeting taphonomic and paleoecological characters, to test these hypotheses. Major ecological shifts in feeding mode, life habit, and tiering level accompany an increase in generic richness between the Avalon and White Sea assemblages. We find that ∼80% of White Sea taxa are absent from the Nama interval, comparable to loss during Phanerozoic mass extinctions. The paleolatitudes, depositional environments, and preservational modes that characterize the White Sea assemblage are well represented in the Nama, indicating that this decline is not the result of sampling bias. Counter to expectations of the biotic replacement model, there are minimal ecological differences between these two assemblages. However, taxa that disappear exhibit a variety of morphological and behavioral characters consistent with an environmentally driven extinction event. The preferential survival of taxa with high surface area relative to volume may suggest that this was related to reduced global oceanic oxygen availability. Thus, our data support a link between Ediacaran biotic turnover and environmental change, similar to other major mass extinctions in the geologic record. National Academy of Sciences 2022-11-07 2022-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9674242/ /pubmed/36343248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2207475119 Text en Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Physical Sciences
Evans, Scott D.
Tu, Chenyi
Rizzo, Adriana
Surprenant, Rachel L.
Boan, Phillip C.
McCandless, Heather
Marshall, Nathan
Xiao, Shuhai
Droser, Mary L.
Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition
title Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition
title_full Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition
title_fullStr Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition
title_full_unstemmed Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition
title_short Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition
title_sort environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the ediacaran white sea-nama transition
topic Physical Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9674242/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36343248
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2207475119
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