ArticleNature ecology & evolution2020
A one-billion-year-old multicellular chlorophyte.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The evolutionary conservation of eukaryotic membrane-bound adenylyl cyclase isoforms.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Environmental phylogenetics supports a steady diversification of crown eukaryotes starting from the mid-Proterozoic.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Three-dimensional reconstruction of ediacaran ceramiales (Rhodophyta) from the phosphorite doushantuo formation, South China.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- A diverse Palaeoproterozoic microbial ecosystem implies early eukaryogenesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Exploring the Causes of the Cambrian Explosion Based on the Evolution Mechanism of Genome Sequences.Biology · 2025Article
- Dating the Origin and Spread of Plastids and Chromatophores.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Genetic Predisposition Toward Multicellularity in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Ecosystem relocation on Snowball Earth: Polar-alpine ancestry of the extant surface biosphere?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Settling aerodynamics is a driver of symmetry in deciduous tree leaves.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- Evolution of the iodine cycle and the late stabilization of the Earth's ozone layer.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Profile of Shuhai Xiao.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Review
- Proterozoic microfossils continue to provide new insights into the rise of complex eukaryotic life.Royal Society open science · 2024Review
- Amoebozoan testate amoebae illuminate the diversity of heterotrophs and the complexity of ecosystems throughout geological time.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Fossil-calibrated molecular clock data enable reconstruction of steps leading to differentiated multicellularity and anisogamy in the Volvocine algae.BMC biology · 2024Article
- Cryogenian Origins of Multicellularity in Archaeplastida.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- 1.63-billion-year-old multicellular eukaryotes from the Chuanlinggou Formation in North China.Science advances · 2024Article
- ATP synthase evolution on a cross-braced dated tree of life.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Organic carbon cycling and black shale deposition: an Earth System Science perspective.National science review · 2023Article
- Phylotranscriptomics unveil a Paleoproterozoic-Mesoproterozoic origin and deep relationships of the Viridiplantae.Nature communications · 2023Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
Chlorophytes (representing a clade within the Viridiplantae and a sister group of the Streptophyta) probably dominated marine export bioproductivity and played a key role in facilitating ecosystem complexity before the Mesozoic diversification of phototrophic eukaryotes such as diatoms, coccolithophorans and dinoflagellates. Molecular clock and biomarker data indicate that chlorophytes diverged in the Mesoproterozoic or early Neoproterozoic, followed by their subsequent phylogenetic diversification, multicellular evolution and ecological expansion in the late Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic. This model, however, has not been rigorously tested with palaeontological data because of the scarcity of Proterozoic chlorophyte fossils. Here we report abundant millimetre-sized, multicellular and morphologically differentiated macrofossils from rocks approximately 1,000 million years ago. These fossils are described as Proterocladus antiquus new species and are interpreted as benthic siphonocladalean chlorophytes, suggesting that chlorophytes acquired macroscopic size, multicellularity and cellular differentiation nearly a billion years ago, much earlier than previously thought.
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