NSFGEO-NERC: Ancient life in moving fluids: elucidating the emergence of animal ecosystems

埃迪卡拉纪晚期（约5.71 - 5.39亿年前）动物生态系统的出现是生命进化史上的一个关键事件。然而，大多数埃迪卡拉纪生物在寒武纪之前就消失了，这可能代表了复杂生命的第一次大规模灭绝。因此，有两个关键问题将为现代生态系统的起源提供基本的见解：1）埃迪卡拉生物在生命树中的位置？2）在寒武纪开始之前，是什么导致了它们的灭绝？我们将通过将野外工作中收集的新数据与对个体生物和整个群落进行的计算机模拟相结合来解决这些问题。该项目将增进对复杂生态系统早期演变的了解，同时开创一种严格的新方法，以研究海洋生物如何对流动的液体作出反应。我们将与当地学校教师合作，制作专注于3D建模和流体动力学的学习模块，适合向英国和美国的学生（16-18岁）传达关键的进化原理。

The emergence of animal ecosystems during the late Ediacaran (~571-539 million years ago) was a pivotal episode in the evolutionary history of life. However, most of these Ediacaran organisms disappeared immediately before the Cambrian, in what may represent the first mass extinction of complex life. There are thus two key questions that will provide fundamental insights into the origins of modern ecosystems: 1) where do Ediacaran organisms fit in the tree of life? And, 2) what drove their extinction prior to the onset of the Cambrian? We will address these questions by combining new data collected during fieldwork with computer simulations performed on both individual organisms and whole communities. This project will improve knowledge of the early evolution of complex ecosystems, while at the same time pioneering the development of a rigorous new approach for examining how marine organisms evolved in response to moving fluids. We will work together with local school teachers to produce learning modules focused on 3-D modelling and fluid dynamics, suitable for communicating key evolutionary principals to students (16-18 years old) in the UK and USA.