Explaining the Cambrian "explosion" of animals

Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Volumn 34, Issue , 2006, Pages 355-384

  Marshall, Charles R ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Bilaterian phyla; Development; Ecology; Evolution; Paleontology

Indexed keywords

ECOLOGY; GEOCHRONOLOGY; GEOLOGY; MORPHOLOGY;

BILATERIAN PHYLA; EVOLUTION; PALEONTOLOGY;

BIOLOGY;

CAMBRIAN; FOSSIL RECORD; PALEONTOLOGY; PHYLOGENY; SPECIES DIVERSITY;

ANIMALIA; BILATERIA;

EID: 33744955037     PISSN: 00846597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.earth.33.031504.103001     Document Type: Review

References (110)

1. Alroy J. 1999. The fossil record of North American mammals: evidence for a Paleocene evolutionary radiation. Syst. Biol. 48:107-18
2. Amthor JE, Grotzinger JP, Schroder S, Bowring SA, Ramezani J, et al. 2003. Extinction of Cloudina and Namacalathus at the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary in Oman. Geology 31:431-34
3. Aris-Brosou S, Yang ZH. 2003. Bayesian models of episodic evolution support a late Precambrian explosive diversification of the Metazoa. Mol. Biol. Evol. 20:1947-54
4. Averof M, Patel NH. 1997. Crustacean appendage evolution associated with changes in Hox gene expression. Nature 388:682-86
5. Bengtson S. 2002. Origins and early evolution of predation. Paleont. Soc. Papers 8:289-317
6. Bowring SA, Grotzinger JP, Isachsen CE, Knoll AH, Pelechaty SM, Kolosov P. 1993. Calibrating rates of Early Cambrian evolution. Science 261:1293-98
7. Briggs DEG, Erwin DH, Collier FJ. 1994. The Fossils of the Burgess Shale. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Inst. 237 pp.
8. Budd GE, Jensen S. 2000. A critical reappraisal of the fossil record of the bilaterian phyla. Biol. Rev. 75:253-95
9. Buss LW, Seilacher A. 1994. The phylum Vendobionta: a sister group of the Eumetazoa. Paleobiology 20:1-4
10. Butterfield NJ. 1997. Plankton ecology and the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transition. Paleobiology 23:247-62
11. Butterfield NJ. 2001. Ecology and evolution of Cambrian plankton. See Zhuravlev & Riding 2001, pp. 200-16
12. Canfield DE. 2005. The early history of atmospheric oxygen: homage to Robert M. Garrels. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 33:1-36
13. Carroll SB, Grenier JK, Weatherbee SD. 2001. From DNA to Diversity. Oxford: Blackwell Sci. 214 pp.
14. Collins AG, Lipps JH, Valentine JW. 2000. Modern mucociliary creeping trails and the bodyplans of Neoproterozoic trace-makers. Paleobiology 26:47-55
15. Condon D, Zhu M, Bowring S, Wang W, Yang A, Jin Y. 2005. U-Pb ages from the Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation, China. Science 308:95-98
16. Conway Morris S. 1992. Burgess Shale-type faunas in the context of the "Cambrian explosion": a review. J. Geol. Soc. London 149:631-36
17. Conway Morris S. 1998. The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. 242 pp.
18. Conway Morris S. 2003. Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. 486 pp.
19. Conway Morris S, Peel JS. 1995. Articulated halkeriids from the Lower Cambrian of North Greenland and their role in early protostomate evolution. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London B 347:305-58
20. Csete ME, Doyle JC. 2002. Reverse engineering of biological complexity. Science 295:1664-69
21. Davidson EH. 2001. Genomic Regulatory Systems: Development and Evolution. San Diego: Academic. 261 pp.
22. Davidson EH, Peterson KJ, Cameron RA. 1995. Origin of bilaterian body plans: evolution of developmental regulatory mechanisms. Science 270:1319-25
23. Droser ML, Gehling JG, Jensen S. 1999. When the worm turned: concordance of Early Cambrian ichnofabric and trace-fossil record in siliciclastic rocks of South Australia. Geology 12:625-28
24. Droser ML, Jensen S, Gehling JG. 2002. Trace fossils and substrates of the terminal Proterozoic-Cambrian transition: implications for the record of early bilaterians and sediment mixing. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99:12572-76
25. Erwin DH, Davidson EH. 2002. The last common bilaterian ancestor. Development 129:3021-32
26. Evans JS. 1912. The sudden appearance of the Cambrian fauna. 11th Int. Geol. Congr., Stockholm. Compte Rendu 1:543-46
27. Fedonkin MA, Waggoner BM. 1997. The late Precambrian fossil Kimberella is a mollusk-like bilaterian organism. Nature 388:868-71
28. Finnerty JR, Pang K, Burton P, Paulson D, Martindale MQ. 2004. Origins of bilateral symmetry: Hox and dpp expression in a sea anemone. Science 304:1335-37
29. Foote M. 2003. Origination and extinction through the Phanerozoic: a new approach. J. Geol. 111:125-48
30. Gavrilets S. 2004. Fitness Landscapes and the Origin of Species. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. 476 pp.
31. Gehling JG. 1987. Earliest known echinoderm; a new Ediacaran fossil from the Pound Subgroup of South Australia. Alcheringa 11:337-45
32. Gehling JG, Jensen S, Droser ML, Myrow PM, Narbonne GM. 2001. Burrowing below the basal Cambrian GSSP, Fortune Head, Newfoundland. Geol. Mag. 138:213-18
33. Gould SJ. 1989. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. 347 pp.
34. Gradstein FM, Ogg JG, Smith AG, Agterberg FP, Bleeker W, et al. 2004. A Geologic Time Scale 2004. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. 589 pp.
35. Grant SWF. 1990. Shell structure and distribution of Cloudina, a potential index fossil for the terminal Proterozoic. Am. J. Sci. 290A:261-94
36. Grotzinger JP, Bowring SA, Saylor BZ, Kaufman AJ. 1995. Biostratigraphic and geochronologic constraints on early animal evolution. Science 270:598-604
37. Grotzinger JP, Watters WA, Knoll AH. 2000. Calcified metazoans in thrombolite-stromatolite reefs of the terminal Proterozoic Nama Group, Namibia. Paleobiology 26:334-59
38. Halanych KM. 2004. The new view of animal phylogeny. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 35:229-56
39. Hoffman PF, Kaufman AJ, Halverson GP, Schrag DP. 1998. A Neoproterozoic snowball Earth. Science 281:1342-46
40. Hou X, Aldridge RJ, Bergstrom J, Siveter DJ, Siveter DJ, Feng X. 2004. The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Animal Life. Oxford: Blackwell Publ. 233 pp.
41. Hou X, Ramsköld L, Bergström J. 1991. Composition and preservation of the Chengjiang fauna - a Lower Cambrian soft-bodied biota. Zool. Scr. 20:395-411
42. Hua H, Pratt BR, Zhang L. 2003. Borings in Cloudina shells: complex predator-prey dynamics in the terminal Neoproterozoic. Palaios 18:454-59
43. Hua H, Chen Z, Yuan X, Zhang L, Xiao S. 2005. Skeletogenesis and asexual reproduction in the earliest biomineralizing animal Cloudina. Geology 33:277-80
44. Hughes NC, Chapman RE, Adrain JM. 1999. The stability of thoracic segmentation in trilobites: a case study in developmental and ecological constraints. Evol. Develop. 1:24-35
45. Hutchinson GE. 1961. The biologist poses some problems. In Oceanography, ed. M Sears, pp. 85-94. Washington, DC: Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. Publ. 67
46. Jacobs DJ, Hughes NC, Fitz-Gibbon ST, Winchell CJ. 2005. Terminal addition, the Cambrian radiation and the Phanerozoic evolution of bilaterian form. Evol. Develop. 7:498-514
47. Jensen S, Gehling JG, Droser ML. 1998. Ediacara-type fossils in Cambrian sediments. Nature 393:567-69
48. Kauffman SA. 1993. The Origins of Order. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. 709 pp.
49. Kirschvink JL. 1992. Late Proterozoic low-latitude global glaciation: the snowball Earth. In The Proterozoic Biosphere: A Multidisciplinary Study, eds. JW Schopf, C Klein, pp. 51-58. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. 1348 pp.
50. Kirschvink JL, Raub TD. 2003. A methane fuse for the Cambrian explosion: carbon cycles and true polar wander. C. R. Geosci. 335:65-78
51. Kirschvink JL, Ripperdan RL, Evans DA. 1997. Evidence for a large-scale reorganization of early Cambrian continental masses by inertial interchange true polar wander. Science 277:541-45
52. Knoll AH, Carroll SB. 1999. Early animal evolution: emerging views from comparative biology and geology. Science 284:2129-37
53. Kouchinsky AV. 2001. Mollusks, hyoliths, stenothecoids, and coeloscleritophorans. See Zhuravlev & Riding 2001, pp. 326-49
54. Landing E, Bowring SA, Davidek KL, Westrop SR, Geyer G, Helmaier W. 1998. Duration of the Early Cambrian: U-Pb ages of volcanic ashes from Avalon and Gondwana. Can. J. Earth Sci. 35:329-38
55. Lewin R. 1988. A lopsided look at evolution. Science 241:291-93
56. Maloof AC, Schrag DP, Crowley JL, Bowring SA. 2005. An expanded record of Early Cambrian carbon cycling from the Anti-Atlas Margin, Morocco. Can. J. Earth Sci. 42:2195-216
57. Marcotte BM. 1999. Turbidity, arthropods and the evolution of perception: toward a new paradigm of marine Phanerozoic diversity. Marine Ecol. Prog. Ser. 191:267-88
58. Marshall CR. 1995. Darwinism in an age of molecular revolution. In Evolution and the Molecular Revolution, eds. CR Marshall, JW Schopf, pp. 1-30. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. 175 pp.
59. Marshall CR. 1998. Determining stratigraphic ranges. In The Adequacy of the Fossil Record, eds. SK Donovan, CRC Paul, pp. 23-53. London: Wiley
60. Marshall CR. 2003. Nomethetism and understanding the Cambrian "explosion." Palaios 18:195-56
61. McGhee GR. 1999. Theoretical Morphology: The Concept and Its Applications. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. 378 pp.
62. McMenamin AS. 1998. The Garden of Ediacara: Discovering the First Complex Life. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. 284 pp.
63. Montanez IP, Osleger DA, Banner JL, Mack LE, Musgrove ML. 2000. Evolution of Sr and C isotope composition of Cambrian oceans. GSA Today 10:1-7
64. Narbonne GM. 2005. The Ediacara biota: Neoproterozoic origin of animals and their ecosystems. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 33:421-42
65. Niklas KJ. 1994. Morphological evolution through complex domains of fitness. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91:6772-79
66. Niklas KJ. 1997. Effects of hypothetical developmental barriers and abrupt environmental changes on adaptive walks in a computer generated domain for early vascular land plants. Paleobiology 23:63-76
67. Niklas KJ. 2004. Computer models of early land plant evolution. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 32:47-66
68. Parker AR. 1998. Colour in Burgess Shale animals and the effect of light on the evolution in the Cambrian. Proc. Biol. Sci. 265:967-72
69. Payne JL, Lehrmann DJ, Jiayong W, Orchard MJ, Schrag DP, Knoll AH. 2004. Large perturbations of the Carbon cycle during recovery from the end-Permian extinction. Science 305:506-9
70. Peterson KJ, Davidson EH. 2000. Regulatory evolution and the origin of the bilaterians. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97:4430-33
71. Peterson KJ, Lyons JB, Nowak KS, Takacs CM, Wargo MJ, McPeek MA. 2004. Estimating metazoan divergence times with a molecular clock. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101:6536-41
72. Peterson KJ, McPeek MA, Evans DAD. 2005. Tempo and mode of early animal evolution: inferences from rocks, Hox and molecular clocks. Paleobiology 31(Suppl.):36-55
73. Peterson KJ, Waggoner B, Hagadorn JW. 2003. A fungal analog for Newfoundland Ediacaran fossils? Integr. Comp. Biol. 43:127-36
74. Raff RA. 1996. The Shape of Life. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press. 520 pp.
75. Retallack GJ. 1994. Were the Ediacaran fossils lichens. Paleobiology 20:523-44
76. Rothman DH, Hayes JM, Summons RE. 2003. Dynamics of the Neoproterozoic carbon cycles. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100:8124-29
77. Runnegar B. 1982. A molecular clock model for the origin of animal phyla. Lethaia 15:199-205
78. Runnegar B. 1995. Vendobionta or Metazoa? Developments in understanding the Ediacara 'fauna.' Neues Jahrb. Geol. Paläontol. Abhandlug. 195:303-18
79. Seilacher A. 1989. Vendozoa: organismic construction in the Proterozoic biosphere. Lethaia 22:229-39
80. Seilacher A. 1992. Vendobionta and Psammocorallia - lost constructions of Precambrian evolution. J. Geol. Soc. London 149:607-13
81. Sepkoski JJ. 1997. Biodiversity: past, present, and future. J. Paleontol. 71:533-39
82. Sepkoski JJ. 2002. A Compendium of Fossil Marine Animal Genera, ed. D Jablonski, M Foote, Bull. Am. Paleontol. 363:1-563. Ithaca, NY: Paleontol. Res. Inst.
83. Shubin NH, Marshall CR. 2000. Fossils, genes, and the origin of novelty. Paleobiology 26(Suppl.):324-40
84. Signor PW, Vermeij GJ. 1994. The plankton and the benthos: origins and early history of an evolving relationship. Paleobiology 20:297-319
85. Sole RV, Fernendez P, Kauffmann SA. 2003. Adaptive walks in a gene network model of morphogenesis: insights into the Cambrian explosion. Int. J. Dev. Biol. 47:685-93
86. Stanley S. 1973. An ecological theory for the sudden origin of multicellular life in the Late Precambrian. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 70:1486-89
87. Stanley S. 1976. Ideas on the timing of metazoan diversification. Paleobiology 2:209-19
88. Tavaré S, Marshall CR, Will O, Soligo C, Martin RD. 2002. Using the fossil record to estimate the age of the last common ancestor of extant primates. Nature 416:726-29
89. Towe KM. 1970. Oxygen-collagen priority and the early metazoan fossil record. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 65:781-88
90. Valentine JW. 1980. Determinants of diversity in higher taxonomic categories. Paleobiology 6:444-50
91. Valentine JW. 1986. Fossil record of the origin of Baupläne and its implications. In Patterns and Processes in the History of Life, eds. DM Raup, D Jablonski, pp. 209-31. New York: Springer
92. Valentine JW. 1995. Why no new phyla after the Cambrian? Genome and ecospace hypotheses revisited. Palaios 10:190-94
93. Valentine JW. 2000. Two genomic paths to the evolution of complexity in bodyplans. Paleobiology 26:513-19
94. Valentine JW. 2002. Prelude to the Cambrian explosion. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 32:285-306
95. Valentine JW. 2004. On the Origin of Phyla. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press. 614 pp.
96. Valentine JW, Awramik SM, Signor PW, Sadler PM. 1991. The biological explosion at the Precambrian Cambrian boundary. Evol. Biol. 25:279-356
97. Valentine JW, Walker D. 1986. Diversity trends within a model of taxonomic hierarchy. Physica D 22:31-42
98. Vermeij GJ. 1987. Evolution and Escalation: An Ecological History of Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. 544 pp.
99. Vermeij GJ. 1990. The origin of skeletons. Palaios 4:585-89
100. Vermiej GJ. 2004. Nature: An Economic History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. 461 pp.
101. Webby BD, Paris F, Droser ML, Percival IG, eds. 2004. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. New York, NY: Columbia Univ. Press. 496 pp.
102. Whittington HB. 1985. The Burgess Shale. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press. 151 pp.
103. Williams GC. 1997. Preliminary assessment of the phylogeny of Pennatulacea (Anthozoa: Octocoralia), with reevaluation of Ediacaran frond-like fossils, and a synopsis of the history of evolutionary thought regarding sea pens. Proc. 6th Int. Conf. Coelent. Biol. 1995:497-509
104. Wimsatt WC. 1986. Developmental constraints, generative entrenchment, and the innate-acquired distinction. In Science and Philosophy, Integrating Scientific Disciplines, ed. W Bechtel, pp. 185-208. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff
105. Wolfram S. 2002. A New Kind of Science. Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media Inc. 1280 pp.
106. Wray GA, Levinton JS, Shapiro LH. 1996. Molecular evidence for deep Precambrian divergences among metazoan phyla. Science 274:568-73
107. Wright S. 1931. Evolution in Mendelian populations. Genetics 16:97-159
108. Wright S. 1932. The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding selection in evolution. Proc. 6th Int. Congr. Genet. 1:356-66
109. Zhuravlev AY, Riding R, eds. 2001. The Ecology of the Cambrian Radiation. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. 525 pp.
110. Zhuravlev AY. 2001. Biotic diversity and structure during the Neoproterozoic Ordovician transition. See Zhuravlev & Riding 2001, pp. 173-99