The Ediacara Explosion

The Cambrian Explosion was not the only explosive event in the history of life on earth.  The Ediacara Explosion preceded it:

“The explosive evolutionary pattern was a concern to Charles Darwin, because he expected that evolution happens at a slow and constant pace,” said Shuhai Xiao, associate professor of geobiology at Virginia Tech. “Darwin’s perception could be represented by an inverted cone with ever expanding morphological range, but the fossil record of the Cambrian Explosion and since is better represented by a cylinder with a morphological radiation at the base and morphological constraint afterwards.”

Darwin reckoned that there should be long and hidden periods of animal evolution before the Cambrian Explosion, Xiao said.

But paleontologists have not found such evidence, and recently scientists have learned that biological evolution has not been moving on a smooth road. “Accelerated rates may characterize the early evolution of many groups of organisms,” said Michal Kowalewski, professor of geobiology at Virginia Tech.

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“But, one thing seems certain — the evolution of earliest macroscopic and complex life also went through an explosive event before to the Cambrian Explosion,” Xiao said. “It now appears that at the dawn of the macroscopic life, between 575 and 520 million years ago, there was not one, but at least two major episodes of abrupt morphological expansion.”

The Ediacara Explosion was followed by relative stasis in basic morphological forms (including many soft-bodied creatures) that persisted in the fossil record until right up to the Cambrian Explosion:

Surprisingly, however, as shown by Shen and colleagues, these earliest Ediacara life forms already occupied a full morphological range of body plans that would ever be realized through the entire history of Ediacara organisms. “In other words, major types of Ediacara organisms appeared at the dawn of their history, during the Avalon Explosion,” Dong said. “Subsequently, Ediacara organisms diversified in White Sea time and then declined in Nama time. But, despite this notable waxing and waning in the number of species, the morphological range of the Avalon organisms were never exceeded through the subsequent history of Ediacara.”