Study, based on a catalog that records global data on fossil bones and shells, argues that life emerged almost 2 billion years ago.
A new scientific analysis based on a catalog recording global bone and shell fossil data argues that the life emerged almost 2 billion years ago.
The new catalog shows fluctuations in the number of species of ancient life and allows us to know how animals evolved and became extinct in the last 500 million years.
The work, details of which were published Thursday in the journal , is a high-resolution analysis of the global diversity of Proterozoico, between 2.5 and 539 million years ago, when life (mainly small organisms and sponges that failed to develop mineral skeletons) left fewer trace fossils for study.
The record was made by the University of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and carried out in collaboration with researchers from the Russian and Chinese academies of science, and the universities of California in Santa Barbara, Princeton, Missouri and California Riverside.
The team specifically looked at records from ancient marine eukaryotes, organisms whose cells contain a nucleus.
The first eukaryotes later evolved into the multicellular organisms to which the beginning of a new era of life on Earth: animals, plants and fungi.
“This is the most complete and up-to-date analysis of this period to date and, most importantly, we used a graphical correlation program that allowed us to obtain greater temporal resolution,” explains one researcher.
The new analysis reveals that although ancient species evolved more slowly and lasted longer, the pace of evolution accelerated after global glaciations.
The study concludes that the first eukaryotes appeared no more than 1.8 billion years and gradually evolved until they reached a stable level of diversity between about 1.45 billion and 720 million years ago, a period known as “a billion boring years”in which the Species turnover rates were remarkably low.
According to the study, it is possible that eukaryotic species evolved more slowly and lasted longer than later species.
Then a spiral of decreasing temperatures sealed the planet in whether at least twice between 720 million and 635 million years ago. When the ice thawed, evolutionary activity accelerated and things stopped being boring.
“Ice ages were an important factor that restarted the evolutionary path in terms of diversity and dynamics. We observed a rapid turnover of eukaryotic species immediately after the ice age. This is an important discovery”, he explains.
These patterns raise many interesting questions, such as why eukaryotic evolution was slow during the “billions of hassles,” what factors drove the pace of evolution after the ice ages, or whether it was an evolutionary arms race between organisms that led to creatures evolving. quickly.
The authors believe that in the future, scientists will be able to use this new record to answer all of these questions and better understand the complex interplay of life on Earth and the Earth itself.
