The life and times of Pteridinium simplex
The life and times of Pteridinium simplex
复制标题
DOI：
10.1017/pab.2022.2
复制
发表时间：
2022-05-17
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Laflamme, Marc
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Darroch, Simon A. F.;Gibson, Brandt M.;Laflamme, Marc
Pteridinium simplex是一个标志性的erniettomorph分类群，最着名的是在南澳，俄罗斯和纳米比亚的埃迪卡拉纪晚期的继承。尽管近100年的研究，仍然有基本的问题，围绕着这种生物的古生物学和古生态学，包括其相对于沉积物-水界面的生命位置，以及它如何喂养和底栖生物群落内的功能。在这里，我们结合联合收割机的重新描述标本安置在森肯贝格Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum法兰克福与现场观察的含盐表面，限制的生活习性的Pteridinium和获得洞察底栖生态系统的性质开始前不久的寒武纪。我们目前的古生物学和沉积学证据表明，Pteridinium是半infaunal和群居生活在聚集的社区，优先采用的方向与长轴垂直的主流方向。使用计算流体动力学模拟，我们证明了这种生活习惯可能会导致悬浮的食物颗粒沉降在生物体的中央空腔内。这支持解释的Pteridinium作为一个宏观的悬浮饲料，功能类似于同时代的erniettomorph Ernietta，象征着一个更广泛的古生态转向底栖悬浮喂养策略的过程中，最新的埃迪卡拉纪。最后，我们讨论了如何重建Pteridinium提供的信息，其潜在的关系与现存的动物群体和状态的情况下重建Pteridinium作为一个殖民后生动物。
Pteridinium simplex is an iconic erniettomorph taxon best known from late Ediacaran successions in South Australia, Russia, and Namibia. Despite nearly 100 years of study, there remain fundamental questions surrounding the paleobiology and paleoecology of this organism, including its life position relative to the sediment-water interface, and how it fed and functioned within benthic communities. Here, we combine a redescription of specimens housed at the Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt with field observations of fossiliferous surfaces, to constrain the life habit of Pteridinium and gain insights into the character of benthic ecosystems shortly before the beginning of the Cambrian. We present paleontological and sedimentological evidence suggesting that Pteridinium was semi-infaunal and lived gregariously in aggregated communities, preferentially adopting an orientation with the long axis perpendicular to the prevailing current direction. Using computational fluid dynamics simulations, we demonstrate that this life habit could plausibly have led to suspended food particles settling within the organism's central cavity. This supports interpretation of Pteridinium as a macroscopic suspension feeder that functioned similarly to the coeval erniettomorph Ernietta, emblematic of a broader paleoecological shift toward benthic suspension-feeding strategies over the course of the latest Ediacaran. Finally, we discuss how this new reconstruction of Pteridinium provides information concerning its potential relationships with extant animal groups and state a case for reconstructing Pteridinium as a colonial metazoan.