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Early bursts of diversification defined the faunal colonization of land

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Minter, NJ 
Buatois, LA 
Mángano, MG 
Davies, NS 
Gibling, MR 

Abstract

The colonization of land was one of the major events in Earth history, leading to the expansion of life and laying the foundations for the modern biosphere. We examined trace fossils, the record of the activities of past life, to understand how animals diversify both behaviourally and ecologically when colonizing new habitats. The faunal invasion of land was preceded by excursions of benthic animals into very shallow, marginal marine environments during the latest Ediacaran period and culminated in widespread colonization of non-marine niches by the end of the Carboniferous period. Trace fossil evidence for the colonization of new environments shows repeated early burst patterns of maximal ichnodisparity (the degree of difference among basic trace fossil architectural designs), ecospace occupation and level of ecosystem engineering prior to maximal ichnodiversity. Similarities across different environments in the types of behavioural programme employed (as represented by different trace fossils), modes of life present and the ways in which animals impacted their environments suggest constraints on behavioural and ecological diversification. The early burst patterns have the hallmark of novelty events. The underlying drivers of these events were probably the extrinsic limitation of available ecospace and intrinsic controls of genomic and developmental plasticity that enabled trace-maker morphological and behavioural novelty.

Description

Keywords

31 Biological Sciences, 3103 Ecology, 3104 Evolutionary Biology, 14 Life Below Water

Journal Title

Nature Ecology & Evolution

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2397-334X
2397-334X

Volume Title

1

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group
Sponsorship
Financial support for the initial part of this project was provided to N.J.M. through a Government of Canada Post-doctoral Research Fellowship under the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship Program. Additional funding was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grants 311726-05/08/15 and 311727-05/08/13 (to L.A.B. and M.G.M., respectively). M.R.G also acknowledges funding from an NSERC Discovery Grant. This is Earth Sciences Sector contribution number 20160255 and contribution 314 of the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Consortium of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC.