Deconstructing Biases in the Fossil Record of the Oldest Animals: Experimental and Geochemical Studies in Soft-Tissue Preservation

化石记录是反复无常和有偏见的。保存软体生物的遗址，而不是典型的骨骼、牙齿和贝壳化石组合，是极其罕见和真正特殊的(Seilacher的Konservat-Lagerstätten，1970)。拉格斯特滕代表了灭绝物种最丰富的解剖学信息来源，提供了更完整的深层多样性模式，并最终打开了一扇窗，了解古代生态系统的工作原理，这通常是研究现代系统的生物学家才能看到的。然而，越来越多的人认识到，拉格斯特滕充满了保存偏见，迫切需要系统地定性。例如，拉格斯坦丁在地质年代中分布不均，通常受限于特定的环境环境，并且优先保存某些组织类型(Allison和Briggs，1993；Schiffbauer和Laflamme，2012)。研究控制化石保存速度和方式的物理、化学和生物因素的跨学科研究正在为化石记录的内容和准确性提供关键的新视角，是正确识别生命进化趋势的必要的第一步。我的长期研究目标是阐明导致化石石化的攻丝学途径，并识别偏向化石记录的物理、化学和生物控制。

The fossil record is fickle and biased. Sites that preserve soft-bodied organisms, as opposed to typical fossil assemblages of bones, teeth, and shells, are exceedingly rare and truly exceptional (Konservat-Lagerstätten of Seilacher, 1970). Lagerstätten represent the richest source of anatomical information for extinct species, offer more complete views of diversity patterns in deep time, and ultimately open a window into the workings of ancient ecosystems typically afforded only to biologists studying modern systems. However, there is a growing recognition that Lagerstätten are fraught with preservational biases, which are in urgent need of systematic characterization. For instance, Lagerstätten are unevenly distributed through geological time, are typically restricted to specific environmental settings, and preferentially preserve certain tissue types over others (Allison and Briggs, 1993; Schiffbauer and Laflamme, 2012). Interdisciplinary studies that examine the physical, chemical, and biological factors controlling the tempos and modes of fossil preservation (taphonomy) are offering critical new perspectives on the content and accuracy of the fossil record, and are a necessary first step in correctly identifying trends in the evolution of life. My long-term research objective is to elucidate the taphonomic pathways responsible for fossilization, and to identify physical, chemical, and biological controls biasing the fossil record.