When Life Got Big: The Ediacaran emergence of biological complexity

当生命变大时：埃迪卡拉生物复杂性的出现

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-05561
• 负责人: Narbonne, Guy
• 金额: $ 2.19万
• 依托单位: Queen's University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2014-01-01 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=567245
• 关键词: When; Life; Got; Big; Ediacaran

The Ediacaran Period, the period immediately before the Cambrian explosion of shelly animal life 541 million years ago, marks a watershed in Earth evolution – the abrupt appearance of multiple groups of large, morphologically complex, life forms after three billion years of Precambrian microbial evolution. Our proposed project will utilize fossil evidence, supplemented by sedimentology and geochemistry of the fossil successions, to document the origin and early development of biological complexity in the Ediacaran oceans. The oldest definite fossils of complex, soft-bodied life forms are 580 million-year-old fronds up to two meters long at Mistaken Point in eastern Newfoundland and equivalent fossils we recently discovered in NW Canada. All known occurrences of the oldest complex life are from deep-water deposits, implying that biological complexity may have arisen in the deep-sea and later spread into shallower-water environments. We will examine these two regions in detail, and will also investigate several other geological sites that are potentially favourable to preserving early large and complex fossils, to test the age and environmental conditions leading to biological complexity and the origin of animals. Some of the questions we will investigate include how Ediacaran life forms achieved large size and complexity, what types of complex organisms characterized early communities of complex life, and the role of oxygen and other factors in the early evolution of complexity. As a related question, we will investigate the evolution of Ediacaran and early Cambrian braininess through an evaluation of the sequential innovations in behavioural complexity shown by burrowing animals during this period. Our studies in NW Canada suggest that Ediacaran burrowers showed minimal responses to environmental stimuli but some Cambrian burrowers showed consistent and strong responses that were probably genetically controlled within the species. We intend to test and refine this hypothesis through studies of Ediacaran and Cambrian trace fosil-rich successions in Newfoundland and southern Africa. This research will provide training for 1 postdoctoral fellow, 4 PhD students, 4 MSc students, and 10 undergraduate assistants/honours thesis students. This origin of animals and other complex life has proven popular among the public and our studies have been featured abundantly in the popular media, including an Emmy Award-winning documentary on early life by Sir David Attenborough. Our key fossil site at Mistaken Point in Newfoundland is also an approved candidate site for consideration as as a possible UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ediacaran时期是5.41亿年前在雪莉动物寿命爆炸之前的时期，标志着地球进化中的一个分水岭 - 在三十亿年的前膜微生物进化后，多个大型，形态上复杂的多组群体突然出现。我们提出的项目将利用化石证据，并补充了化石演讲的沉积学和地球化学，以记录最古老的复杂，柔软的生命形式的定义最古老的化石，是5.8亿年前的阵线，最多可达两米长的纽芬兰东部杂物，我们最近在纽芬兰的东部和等效的possils中发现了nw and nw nw Cansa Canca。最古老的复合寿命的所有已知事件均来自深水沉积物，这意味着在深海中可能出现了生物复杂性，然后扩散到较浅的水环境中。我们将详细研究这两个区域，还将研究其他几个潜在地保存早期大型化石的地质地点，以测试导致生物学复杂性和动物起源的年龄和环境条件。我们将研究的一些问题包括Ediacaran Life形式如何实现大小和复杂性，哪种类型的复杂生物具有复杂生命的早期社区的特征，以及氧气和其他因素在复杂性早期演变中的作用。作为一个相关问题，我们将通过评估此期间挖洞动物所显示的行为复杂性的顺序创新，研究Ediacaran和早期寒武纪脑的演变。我们在加拿大西北地区的研究表明，埃迪亚亚（Ediacaran）挖洞者对环境刺激的反应最少，但一些寒武纪的洞穴表现出一致且强烈的反应，这些反应可能在该物种中受到遗传控制。我们打算通过研究纽芬兰和南部非洲的Ediacaran和Cambrian Trace-Fosil富含富含Fosil的继任者来检验和完善这一假设。这项研究将为1名博士后研究员，4位学生，4名MSC学生和10位本科助理/荣誉论文学生提供培训。动物和其他复杂生活的这种起源已被证明在公众中很受欢迎，我们的研究基本上是在流行媒体中，包括戴维·艾蒂伯勒爵士（Sir David Attenborough）爵士的《早期生活》纪录片。我们位于纽芬兰Mistaken Point的主要化石网站也是被批准的候选地点，以作为联合国教科文组织世界遗产。