Highly regulated growth and development of the Ediacara macrofossil Dickinsonia costata

PloS One
Scott D EvansJames G Gehling

Abstract

The Ediacara Biota represents the oldest fossil evidence for the appearance of animals but linking these taxa to specific clades has proved challenging. Dickinsonia is an abundant, apparently bilaterally symmetrical Ediacara fossil with uncertain affinities. We identified and measured key morphological features of over 900 specimens of Dickinsonia costata from the Ediacara Member, South Australia to characterize patterns in growth and morphology. Here we show that development in Dickinsonia costata was surprisingly highly regulated to maintain an ovoid shape via terminal addition and the predictable expansion of modules. This result, along with other characters found in Dickinsonia suggests that it does not belong within known animal groups, but that it utilized some of the developmental gene networks of bilaterians, a result predicted by gene sequencing of basal metazoans but previously unidentified in the fossil record. Dickinsonia thus represents an extinct clade located between sponges and the last common ancestor of Protostomes and Deuterostomes, and likely belongs within the Eumetazoa.

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Citations

Sep 15, 2017·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Renee S HoekzemaAlexander G Liu
Nov 7, 2017·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Frances S DunnPhilip C J Donoghue
Mar 25, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Scott D EvansMary L Droser
Sep 28, 2018·Emerging Topics in Life Sciences·Scott D EvansTimothy W Lyons
Jul 10, 2020·Interface Focus·Emily G MitchellDmitriy V Grazhdankin
Apr 23, 2019·Papers in Palaeontology·Frances S DunnAlexander G Liu
Sep 30, 2019·Topics in Cognitive Science·Michael G Paulin, Joseph Cahill-Lane
Feb 25, 2021·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Scott D EvansDouglas H Erwin

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Software Mentioned

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Dickinsonia
Minitab

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