ArticlePLoS biology2022
Metacommunity analyses show an increase in ecological specialisation throughout the Ediacaran period.
Article in PLoS biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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11 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- The influence of reproductive mode on resource competition and diversity patterns in Ediacaran early animal communities.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- The evolution of reproduction in Ediacaran-Cambrian metazoans.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Article
- Constraining the lifespans of early animals of the Ediacaran.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Smoothness analyses of trace fossils: expanding quantitative toolkits to unravel bilaterian movement ecology during the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Use of Ecological Networks to Reveal Interspecific Fungal Interactions from 150 Years of Foray Records.Mycobiology · 2025Article
- Co-occurrence structure of late Ediacaran communities and influence of emerging ecosystem engineers.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Morphology shapes community dynamics in early animal ecosystems.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Article
- Causes and consequences of end-Ediacaran extinction: An update.Cambridge prisms. Extinction · 2023Review
- Increases in reef size, habitat and metacommunity complexity associated with Cambrian radiation oxygenation pulses.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Addressing biodiversity loss by building a shared future.PLoS biology · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The first animals appear during the late Ediacaran (572 to 541 Ma); an initial diversity increase was followed reduction in diversity, often interpreted as catastrophic mass extinction. We investigate Ediacaran ecosystem structure changes over this time period using the "Elements of Metacommunity Structure" framework to assess whether this diversity reduction in the Nama was likely caused by an external mass extinction, or internal metacommunity restructuring. The oldest metacommunity was characterised by taxa with wide environmental tolerances, and limited specialisation or intertaxa associations. Structuring increased in the second oldest metacommunity, with groups of taxa sharing synchronous responses to environmental gradients, aggregating into distinct communities. This pattern strengthened in the youngest metacommunity, with communities showing strong environmental segregation and depth structure. Thus, metacommunity structure increased in complexity, with increased specialisation and resulting in competitive exclusion, not a catastrophic environmental disaster, leading to diversity loss in the terminal Ediacaran. These results reveal that the complex eco-evolutionary dynamics associated with Cambrian diversification were established in the Ediacaran.
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