磷酸盐化石（包括少许Orsten型化石）因能以三维立体形式保存一些个体微小动物硬体甚至软体的精细结构而尤为引人注目，以往对寒武纪如此保存种种动物类群的研究，已取得许多重要并具开拓性的贡献。其中来自贵州都匀寒武系第5阶高台组精美保存的磷酸盐化石让我们首次得见含卵裂细胞的胚胎和目前已知最古老的几丁虫。 然而，大量出自同一层位的磷酸盐化石，如多节类三叶虫、舌形贝腕足类以及一些分类位置不明的小壳动物等，至今尚未得到充分的研究。本项目拟别开生面，从微观角度认知这些后生动物类群的基本形态和结构、躯体构建、个体发育、生活模式及其早期演化，进而全面系统地描绘由这些众多类群组成的都匀动物群的详尽面目。通过与其它同时或异时化石动物群的比较，辩析它们在不同演化时空上的关联与演替。同时，还可结合共生的遗迹化石（粪化石），探讨当时该化石动物群所处的生态环境和与之相关的埋藏机理。

Phosphatized fossils (including rare Orsten-type material) with three-dimensional preservation, exhibiting the highest fidelity of details of the skeletal structures or soft body anatomy of some small-sized animals, have attracted profound attention. As an example, phosphatized fossils from the Cambrian Stage 5 Gaotai Formation, like many other Cambrian fossil Lagerst?tten that had made significant breakthroughs, have shown us the embryos with blastomeres for the first time and the earliest chitinozoans so far known. However, of the numerous phosphatized fossils yielded by the same limestone bed, many polimeroid trilobites, lingulate brachiopods, and various small shelly fossils of uncertain affinities remain not to be fully examined. Here the proposed project attempts to investigate these metazoan groups through a meticulous way, to exactly show the morphological variation, essential body plan, ontogeny, and mode of life for some of them, as well as their early evolution. Such a study may shed light on the poorly understood Duyun fauna that consists of various metazoan lineages. In comparison with other fossil faunae that may be roughly contemporaneous or from different times, it may reveal the evolutionary development and relationship of these faunae with time. In addition, based on some small ichnofossils (coprolites) coexisting with these fossil invertebrates, we may try to get a substantial understanding about the paleoenvironment once they lived in and the taphonomy associated with the phosphatized fauna.