Evidence for monophyly and arthropod affinity of cambrian giant predators

The Chinese Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna includes three different anomalocaridids, a globally spread, extinct marine group including the largest known Cambrian animals. Anomalocaridids were active predators, and their presence implies that a complex ecosystem appeared abruptly in the earliest Phanerozoic. Complete specimens display several sets of characters shared only with some other exclusively Cambrian forms. This evidence indicates that anomalocaridids, Opabinia, and Kerygmachela form a monophyletic clade. Certain features indicate arthropod affinities of the lade, and for this group an unnamed (sub)phylum-level taxon within an arthropod (super)phylum is proposed.     

Fordilla troyensis Barrande: The Oldest Known Pelecypod

Specimens of the small bivalved animal Fordilla troyensis Barrande from New York State show that this fossil is the oldest known pelecypod mollusk and not a conchostracan arthropod. This finding extends the range of the class Pelecypoda backward in time from the Early Ordovician (about 495 million years ago) to the Early Cambrian (about 540 to 570 million years ago). The morphology of Fordilla troyensis suggests that it lived infaunally and that it was ancestral to the pelecypod subclasses Heteroconchia and Isofilibranchia.     

Middle cambrian arthropod embryos with blastomeres

A phosphatized Middle Cambrian ( approximately 510 million years ago) fauna from Duyun, southern China, has yielded fossil embryos that may be of arthropod affinity and could belong to the co-occurring eodiscid trilobite Pagetia sp. The shell was most likely flexible and possessed at least two thin layers. Four embryos reveal blastomeres, and two embryonic stages are represented. These embryos demonstrate that the basic paradigm for the growth of the invertebrate embryo has not changed in more than half a billion years.     

Phanerozoic-cryptozoic and related transitions: new evidence

The fossil Pteridinium, a distinctive component of a worldwide early metazoan (Ediacaran)assemblage, is provisionally recorded from probable early Cambrian strata in eastern California. In context with other evidence, this finding implies a Cambrian age for the Ediacaran fauna and approximate coincidence of limits between Phanerozoic-Cryptozoic, Paleozoic-Precambrian, and Cambrian-Precambrian.     

The early radiation and relationships of the major arthropod groups

Cambrian arthropods are now well known, but there has been little agreement on how they contribute to an understanding of arthropod phylogeny. Fossils have either been lumped together as "trilobitomorphs" or, more recently, have been the subject of speculation invoking a multiple polyphyletic origin of arthropods. Cladistic analysis of characters of Cambrian and living representatives (excluding Uniramia) shows that trilobites and chelicerates are relatively advanced compared with "crustaceans," and there are doubts whether the latter constitute a national group. An undue emphasis on singular autapomorphies of problematic fossils has obscured these relationships in the past. "Trilobitomorphs" were simply an artificial taxon based on shared primitive characters. The arthropods that evolved during the Cambrian radiation show no more apparent morphological diversity than do the living groups. The evidence of wellpreserved problematica is critical to understanding the nature of this radiation and the affinities of the groups that remain today.     

Halwaxiids and the early evolution of the lophotrochozoans

Halkieriids and wiwaxiids are cosmopolitan sclerite-bearing metazoans from the Lower and Middle Cambrian. Although they have similar scleritomes, their phylogenetic position is contested. A new scleritomous fossil from the Burgess Shale has the prominent anterior shell of the halkieriids but also bears wiwaxiid-like sclerites. This new fossil defines the monophyletic halwaxiids and indicates that they have a key place in early lophotrochozoan history.     

火灾干扰对松林节肢动物群落的影响

在云南安宁市火烧迹地采用样地调查法初步研究了火干扰对云南松和地盘松林节肢动物群落的影响,共采集节肢动物标本853头,计104种.其中火烧云南松林278头,计48种,未火烧云南松林189头,计55种;火烧地盘松林201头,计26种,未火烧地盘松林185头,计34种.与未火烧对照样地相比,火干扰减少了植食性和捕食性类群的种类与数量,却提高了杂食性类群的种群与数量.火烧样地的物种多样性指数和均匀度指数都小于其对照;而优势度指数则大于其对照,样地间的相似性系数为0.139~0.271,体现了火干扰对整个节肢动物群落产生的负面影响,降低了节肢动物群落的稳定性.     

The Cambrian conundrum: early divergence and later ecological success in the early history of animals

Diverse bilaterian clades emerged apparently within a few million years during the early Cambrian, and various environmental, developmental, and ecological causes have been proposed to explain this abrupt appearance. A compilation of the patterns of fossil and molecular diversification, comparative developmental data, and information on ecological feeding strategies indicate that the major animal clades diverged many tens of millions of years before their first appearance in the fossil record, demonstrating a macroevolutionary lag between the establishment of their developmental toolkits during the Cryogenian [(850 to 635 million years ago (Ma)], and the later ecological success of metazoans during the Ediacaran (635 to 541 Ma) and Cambrian (541 to 488 Ma) periods. We argue that this diversification involved new forms of developmental regulation, as well as innovations in networks of ecological interaction within the context of permissive environmental circumstances.     

Lower Cambrian vendobionts from China and early diploblast evolution

Ediacaran assemblages immediately predate the Cambrian explosion of metazoans and should have played a crucial role in this radiation. Their wider relationships, however, have remained refractory and difficult to integrate with early metazoan phylogeny. Here, we describe a frondlike fossil, Stromatoveris (S. psygmoglena sp. nov.), from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerst?tte (Yunnan, China) that is strikingly similar to Ediacaran vendobionts. The exquisite preservation reveals closely spaced branches, probably ciliated, that appear to represent precursors of the diagnostic comb rows of ctenophores. Therefore, this finding has important implications for the early evolution of this phylum and related diploblasts, some of which independently evolved a frondose habit.     

New burgess shale fossil sites reveal middle cambrian faunal complex

Soft-bodied and lightly sclerotized Burgess shale fossils have been found at more than a dozen new localities in an area extending for 20 kilometers along the front of the Cathedral Escarpment in the Middle Cambrian Stephen Formation of the Canadian Rockies. Five different fossil assemblages from four stratigraphic levels have been recognized. These assemblages represent distinct penecontemporaneous marine communities that together make up a normal fore-reef faunal complex.     

Mass extinctions in the marine fossil record

A new compilation of fossil data on invertebrate and vertebrate families indicates that four mass extinctions in the marine realm are statistically distinct from background extinction levels. These four occurred late in the Ordovician, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous periods. A fifth extinction event in the Devonian stands out from the background but is not statistically significant in these data. Background extinction rates appear to have declined since Cambrian time, which is consistent with the prediction that optimization of fitness should increase through evolutionary time.     

Paleogenomics of echinoderms

Paleogenomics propels the meaning of genomic studies back through hundreds of millions of years of deep time. Now that the genome of the echinoid Strongylocentrotus purpuratus is sequenced, the operation of its genes can be interpreted in light of the well-understood echinoderm fossil record. Characters that first appear in Early Cambrian forms are still characteristic of echinoderms today. Key genes for one of these characters, the biomineralized tissue stereom, can be identified in the S. purpuratus genome and are likely to be the same genes that were involved with stereom formation in the earliest echinoderms some 520 million years ago.     

城市不同绿地类型节肢动物群落的组成与结构

为研究城市不同绿地类型节肢动物群落的组成和结构,调查了上海市常绿阔叶林、落叶阔叶林、混交林和落叶针叶林等4种不同绿地类型的16个样地中节肢动物的群落,共采集到节肢动物3纲11目40科,其中摇蚊科数量最多。不同绿地类型节肢动物群落多样性指数排序为:常绿阔叶林(2.09)落叶阔叶林(1.83)混交林(1.78)落叶针叶林(1.76)。害虫亚群落的多样性普遍低于天敌亚群落,说明节肢动物群落中害虫所占的比例较低。因此,建议在城市绿地有害生物防控的过程中,注意对天敌和中性昆虫的保护。     

Abundance distributions imply elevated complexity of post-Paleozoic marine ecosystems

Likelihood analyses of 1176 fossil assemblages of marine organisms from Phanerozoic (i.e., Cambrian to Recent) assemblages indicate a shift in typical relative-abundance distributions after the Paleozoic. Ecological theory associated with these abundance distributions implies that complex ecosystems are far more common among Meso-Cenozoic assemblages than among the Paleozoic assemblages that preceded them. This transition coincides not with any major change in the way fossils are preserved or collected but with a shift from communities dominated by sessile epifaunal suspension feeders to communities with elevated diversities of mobile and infaunal taxa. This suggests that the end-Permian extinction permanently altered prevailing marine ecosystem structure and precipitated high levels of ecological complexity and alpha diversity in the Meso-Cenozoic.     

Small bilaterian fossils from 40 to 55 million years before the cambrian

Ten phosphatized specimens of a small (<180 micrometers) animal displaying clear bilaterian features have been recovered from the Doushantuo Formation, China, dating from 40 to 55 million years before the Cambrian. Seen in sections, this animal (Vernanimalcula guizhouena gen. et sp. nov.) had paired coeloms extending the length of the gut; paired external pits that could be sense organs; bilateral, anterior-posterior organization; a ventrally directed anterior mouth with thick walled pharynx; and a triploblastic structure. The structural complexity is that of an adult rather than a larval form. These fossils provide the first evidence confirming the phylogenetic inference that Bilateria arose well before the Cambrian.     

Adaptive female-mimicking behavior in a scorpionfly

This study provides a clear example of female-mimicking behavior by males in insects and evaluates quantitatively the adaptive significance of this behavior, which is poorly understood in many other organisms. Males of Hylobittacus apicalis provide females with a prey arthropod during copulation. Some males mimic female behavior when interacting with males that have captured nuptial prey, resulting in males stealing prey which they will use for copulation. Males that pirate prey copulate more frequently and probably incur fewer predation-related risks.     

Siliceous microfossils from the lower cambrian of northwest Canada: possible source for biogenic chert

Round to oval, scalelike siliceous microstructures from cherts in Cambrian limestones of the western Yukon Territory suggest affinity with chrysophycean algae. At least six morphotypes present include porous forms with single branching processes and nonporous oval, ringlike forms. Partially dissolved specimens may indicate a contribution to contemporaneous or early diagenetic chert formation.     

Scatological origin of microvertebrate fossil accumulations

Small-mammal bone found in Recent carnivore droppings (scat) is identical in appearance with that in many Mesozoic and Tertiary microvertebrate fossil collections. Such fossil specimens passed into or through the digestive tracts of carnivores before being left as scat that was later reworked into sedimentary rocks. The term "coprocoenosis" is proposed for such an assemblage. Caution is urged in drawing conclusions about the composition of paleocommunities because carnivores can catch prey representing several different communities and leave a mixed assemblage in a particular depositional environment.     

Detection of Borrelia burgdorferi DNA in museum specimens of Ixodes dammini ticks

In order to investigate the potential for Borrelia burgdorferi infection before the recognition of Lyme disease as a clinical entity, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to examine museum specimens of Ixodes dammini (deer ticks) for the presence of spirochete-specific DNA sequences. One hundred and thirty-six archival tick specimens were obtained representing various continental U.S. locations; DNA sequences characteristic of modern day isolates of B. burgdorferi were detected in 13 1940s specimens from Montauk Point and Hither Hills, Long Island, New York. Five archival specimens of Dermacentor variabilis (dog tick) from the same collection and 118 Ixodes specimens from other endemic and nonendemic sites were negative. These data suggest that the appearance of the Lyme disease spirochete in suitable arthropod vectors preceded, by at least a generation, the formal recognition of this disease as a clinical entity in the United States.     

The draft genome of Ciona intestinalis: insights into chordate and vertebrate origins

The first chordates appear in the fossil record at the time of the Cambrian explosion, nearly 550 million years ago. The modern ascidian tadpole represents a plausible approximation to these ancestral chordates. To illuminate the origins of chordate and vertebrates, we generated a draft of the protein-coding portion of the genome of the most studied ascidian, Ciona intestinalis. The Ciona genome contains approximately 16,000 protein-coding genes, similar to the number in other invertebrates, but only half that found in vertebrates. Vertebrate gene families are typically found in simplified form in Ciona, suggesting that ascidians contain the basic ancestral complement of genes involved in cell signaling and development. The ascidian genome has also acquired a number of lineage-specific innovations, including a group of genes engaged in cellulose metabolism that are related to those in bacteria and fungi.