Animal survival strategies in Neoproterozoic ice worlds ...
The timing of the first appearance of animals is of crucial importance for understanding the evolution of life on Earth. Although the fossil record places the earliest metazoans at 572–602 Ma, molecular clock studies suggest a far earlier origination, as far back as ~850 Ma. The difference in these...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.89542 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/342123 |
| Summary: | The timing of the first appearance of animals is of crucial importance for understanding the evolution of life on Earth. Although the fossil record places the earliest metazoans at 572–602 Ma, molecular clock studies suggest a far earlier origination, as far back as ~850 Ma. The difference in these dates would place the rise of animal life into a time period punctuated by multiple colossal, potentially global, glacial events. Although the two schools of thought debate the limitations of each other's methods, little time has been dedicated to how animal life might have survived if it did arise before or during these global glacial periods. The history of recent polar biota shows that organisms have found ways of persisting on and around the ice of the Antarctic continent throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (33–14 Ka), with some endemic species present before the breakup of Gondwana (180–23 Ma). Here we discuss the survival strategies and habitats of modern polar marine organisms in environments analogous to ... |
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