Search

The origin and early evolution of animal development remain among the many deep, unresolved problems in evolutionary biology. As a compelling case for the existence of pre-Cambrian animals, the Ediacaran embryo-like fossils (EELFs) from the Weng'an Biota (approx. 609 Myr old, Doushantuo Formation, South China) have great potential to cast light on the origin and early evolution of animal development. However, their biological implications can be fully realized only when their phylogenetic positions are correctly established, and unfortunately, this is the key problem under debate. As a significant feature of developmental biology, the cell division pattern (CDP) characterized by the dynamic spatial arrangement of cells and associated developmental mechanisms is critical to reassess these hypotheses and evaluate the diversity of the EELFs; however, their phylogenetic implications have not been fully realized. Additionally, the scarcity of fossil specimens representing late developmental stages with cell differentiation accounts for much of this debate too. Here, we reconstructed a large number of EELFs using submicron resolution X-ray tomographic microscopy and focused on the CDPs and associated developmental mechanisms as well as features of cell differentiation. Four types of CDPs and specimens with cell differentiation were identified. Contrary to the prevailing view, our results together with recent studies suggest that the diversity and complexity of developmental mechanisms documented by the EELFs are much higher than is often claimed. The diverse CDPs and associated development features including palintomic cleavage, maternal nutrition, asymmetric cell divisions, symmetry breaking, establishment of polarity or axis, spatial cell migration and differentiation constrain some, if not all, EELFs as total-group metazoans. This article is part of the theme issue 'The impact of Chinese palaeontology on evolutionary research'.

Phosphatic microfossils from the Doushantuo Formation, Guizhou, China, have been reported with preserved cellular structure or even sub-cellular structure in micron scale. However, more details in sub-micro scale have not been reported as having been found. The Fossil embryos from the acid residue of the phosphorite rocks of the Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation in south China have been studied with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an atomic force microscope (AFM). Some ultra-structures in sub-micro scale have been found by AFM on the surface of the fossil embryos. There are four types of structures found on the surface of the selected fossil embryos, the sizes of which vary from 30 to 645 nm in diameter under our AFM. One of the structures is composed of several big sub-units integrated with each other, and the size of the big sub-units is from 250 to 645 nm. Meanwhile, we also found an ultra-layer structure on the surface of the big sub-units, the thickness of which was about 10 nm. Thus we speculate that it could most probably be of biological origin. Therefore, AFM provides a new method for direct observation of the ultra-structure of the Doushantuo fossils in the sub-micro scale.

The extraordinarily preserved, diverse arthropod fauna from the Lower Cambrian Maotianshan shale, central Yunnan (southwest China), represents different evolutionary stages stepping from stem lineages towards crown arthropods (also called euarthropods), which makes this fauna extremely significant for discussion of the origin and early diversification of the arthropods. Anatomical analyses of the Maotianshan shale arthropods strongly indicate that the origin of crown arthropods involved three major evolutionary events, arthrodisation, arthropodisation and cephaliation. We try to explore possible evolutionary changes of the developmental mechanism that may have underlain origins of euarthropod appendage and head. Fossil evidence suggests that the formation of a jointed limb known as arthropodisation and formation of multi-segmented head (called cephalization), which characterize euarthropods, is an event after arthrodisation characterized with the formation of segmented-exoskeleton and the joint membrane between tergites. We propose that the Hox complex was already operating at least as early as in the Early Cambrian and is responsible for the formation of the joint membrane between two segments through Hox gene regulation along the D-V and P-D axis. Fossil evidence indicates that the head in ground state of arthropods consists only of two segments, an ocular and an antennal one. The formation of multiple segmented, euarthropod head (called syncephalon) from the two-segmented head was a separate event, which is called cephalization. Presence of the Hox gene head expression domain and change of developmental mechanism in head segments might be responsible for the formation of the syncephalon and this event has been broadly finished in the Early Cambrian arthropods. The post-oral limbs in the early syncephalons as evidenced from the Lower Cambrian Maotianshan shale arthropods however were almost identical to those in trunk. Therefore we proposed that the lox genes specified- expression in individual segment was a late evolutionary step postdating the formation of syncephalon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Exquisite phosphatized eggs and embryos from the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation (Weng’an biota, ca.580Ma) of Guizhou, southwestern China have greatly expanded our knowledge of the diversity and palaeobiology of early multicellular animals, and contributed to our understanding of the origins of sponge, cnidarian and other potential eumetazoans. However, the key question of whether triploblastic bilaterian animals are present in the Weng’an biota remains controversial. In the present study, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) and propagation phase contrast synchrotron X-ray microtomography (PPC-SR-μCT) are used to prove the presence of bilaterian embryos in the Doushantuo phosphorite. Based on the well preserved connection neck between the polar lobe (PL) and the egg or blastomere as shown by the high-resolution internal sections conducted by PPC-SR-μCT, three types of PL-forming embryos (calabash-shaped (1-cell stage), trefoil and L-shaped (2-cell stage)) have been confirmed in the Doushantuo phosphorite. These PL-forming embryos are distinct from the PL-forming-like embryos, multicellular algal fossils, and even diagenetic artifacts in morphology and anatomy. In addition, an early developmental sequence for these PL-forming embryos can be inferred for the first time. The results not only provide more convincing evidence for animal affinities among the Doushantuo embryos, but also indicate that polar lobes, which break the symmetrical distribution of morphogenetic determinants in cytoplasm during the early developmental stages of living bilaterian embryos, are a conserved device that occurred already during animal embryogenesis even in the Precambrian. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]