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Oxygen and Animals in Earth History Andrew H COMMENTARY COMMENTARY Oxygen and animals in Earth history Andrew H. Knolla,1 and Erik A. Sperlingb,1 Neoproterozoic oceans can be found today, aDepartment of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and bDepartment of Earth including oxygen-minimum zones (OMZs) and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 where pO2 can be exceedingly low. Even where oxygen falls to 1–3% PAL, however, animals, mostly tiny and unmineralized, In the annals of Earth history, few associa- our best physiological guide to ancestral thrive (11) (because of substrate effects, tions have proven more iconic or durable animals. Experiments by Mills et al. (5) sponges are often absent from the soupy than that between animals and oxygen. As on the temperate demosponge Halichon- sediments that characterize OMZs). Second, early as 1919, the experimental physiologist dria panicea (Fig. 1A) indicate that these increasing geochemical data support the view August Krogh (1) explored the relationship animals can live at oxygen levels as low as that oxygen levels remained low—perhaps between O and animal anatomy, and 40 y 0.5–4% of present-day levels (PAL), a con- 2 only a few percent PAL—in the mid-Neopro- later J. R. Nursall (2) posited explicitly that dition likely to have characterized surface terozoic oceans where animals are thought metazoans appear as fossils only in upper- oceans long before the Ediacaran Period. to have originated (ref. 10, and references most Proterozoic rocks because pO2 was in- Importantly, this species grows in shallow, therein). sufficient to support animal physiology well-oxygenated environments and ap- Thus, as Mills et al. argue (5), explanations before this time. Preston Cloud, the first parently has no special adaptations to low for animal origins must be sought elsewhere. great historical geobiologist, championed oxygen. The experimental data therefore Complex multicellular organisms in multiple this idea (3), and in recent years the hypoth- support previous theoretical suggestions clades share key features of genetics and cell esis has been bolstered by geochemical data that—by virtue of their basic body plan, biology (12), and these illuminate the mech- that place redox transition in broad syn- with essentially every cell in contact with anisms by which animals evolved complex chrony with the first animal body fossils seawater (Fig. 1B)—ancestral sponges and structures. By themselves, however, these (4). Now, however, Mills et al. (5) challenge early diploblastic animals would have had characters do not address selection pres- this view of life, at least in its simplest form. only modest oxygen requirements (9, 10). sures that may have favored simple multi- The phylogenetic relationships of basal Thus, oxygen availability probably provided cellularity in Neoproterozoic oceans; these metazoans have become more clouded in little impediment to the origin of animal must lie elsewhere, for example, in advan- recent years, but analyses least associated multicellularity. tages of feeding or defense against protistan with apparent systematic errors place The hypothesis that animals originated predators (13). Both fossils and molecular sponges as the sister group or grade to all in a low-oxygen world gains further support clocks suggest that eukaryovorus protists other animals (6, 7). For this reason, as well from two independent sources. The first (protists that feed by ingesting other eukary- as the clear antiquity of many poriferan source is ecological. The full range of otic cells) radiated during the Neoproterozoic lineages (8), living sponges may provide oxygen tensions likely to have characterized Era (14). Just as carnivory is thought to have provided an ecological driver for Cambrian animal evolution, this change in the biolog- ical environment of Neoproterozoic oceans might have facilitated the evolution of mul- ticellarity in stem group metazoans. Does this mean, then, that oxygen was irrelevant to early animal evolution? Not at all. There is a serious disconnect between molecular clock and biomarker evidence for the origin of sponges in Cryogenian oceans and their widespread appearance as fossils in Cambrian rocks (8). Mills et al.’s(5)experi- ments offer tantalizing evidence that al- though sponges may be able to tolerate very low oxygen conditions, they are sensitive to fluctuating anoxia, and that, as in bilaterian animals, smaller forms may cope better with low oxygen than larger ones. Thus, if the Fig. 1. (A) The marine demosponge Halichondria panicea investigated by Mills et al. (5); note centimeter scale in the foreground. (B) Transmission electron microscopy through the body of the calcareous sponge Sycon coactum. The ability of sponges to tolerate low oxygen is probably related to their basic body design, with only two cell layers, Author contributions: A.H.K. and E.A.S. wrote the paper. the external pinacoderm (p) and the internal choanoderm (c), separated by a largely inert mesohyl (m). Both cell The authors declare no conflict of interest. layers are in direct contact with seawater (sw), and diffusion distances for oxygen to any cell are short. (Scale bar, 5 μm.) Thus, sponges and other small thin animals may have been able to tolerate low Proterozoic oxygen levels; See companion article on page 4168. however, larger, metabolically active animals, particularly carnivores, would have been excluded. Images courtesy 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: aknoll@oeb. of D. B. Mills (A)andS.Leys(B). harvard.edu or [email protected]. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1401745111 PNAS | March 18, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 11 | 3907–3908 trends exhibited by Halichondria are substan- face waters via rapidly sinking fecal pellets, following Mills et al., we can bid adieu to tiated in other sponges, it may be that lessening the oxygen demand of surface simplistic textbook versions for the origin of sponges were able to evolve in Cryogenian waters and, thereby, promoting oxygen en- animals. In its place, new hypotheses are seaways, but remained rare, limited to small richment. In no small part, this hypothesis taking shape, reflecting novel approaches size, and difficult to fossilize. As molecular depends on the view that Proterozoic oceans from paleontology, geochemistry, and com- divergence estimates simply inform us about maintained high bacterial concentrations, parative physiology. In this telling, the focus the temporal origins of a group, and not its determined more by the absence of filter is not on animals per se but rather on specific paleo-abundance or ecological dominance, feeders than by alternative controls, such as anatomies, physiologies, and functions that the experiments of Mills et al. may help to collectively result in high oxygen demand. explain some of the discordance between mo- The experiments of Mills Nor is our sense of Ediacaran environmental lecular and fossil records. et al. may help to explain history likely to persevere as one in which Equally important, at the minimum oxy- some of the discordance low Proterozoic oxygen tensions gave way gen levels capable of supporting sponges, rapidly to an essentially modern world. most familiar animals would die, so there between molecular and Rather, as predicted by some models of must be more to the story. Oxygen may not fossil records. Phanerozoic environmental history (19), have lit the fuse for the Cambrian Explosion, the rise of oxygen to present-day levels is nutrient supply and viral lysis. It also requires but it might have supplied some fuel. Oxygen beginning to look protracted, with rela- requirements reflect size, transport mecha- types of animals little observed before the tively low pO in Cambrian oceans (20) nisms within tissues, and metabolic demand, Cambrian. Nonetheless, this is a hypothesis 2 giving way over many millions of years to and the metazoans found in modern dysoxic worth considering as Earth scientists strive to oxygen tensions equal to or greater than the waters (O present but in low amounts) tend build a more complete picture of Ediacaran 2 present. Continuing research, then, will in- to be tiny (11). The famous Ediacaran macro- life and environments. Even if we accept the creasingly focus on Paleozoic evolution and fossils may not reflect the earliest animals, premise that animal diversification helped to but along with a number of forms with con- ventilate Ediacaran oceans, however, we environments, with the sequential appear- troversial affinities, they do record the oldest needn’tviewtherelationshipbetweenoxygen ances of large and heavily skeletonized large animals capable of widespread preser- and animal evolution as one-way. Insofar as invertebrates, enormous predatory fish, and vation (15). Moreover, in modern dysoxic we are not making the parallel error of as- even giant dragonflies, interpreted in the environments, one functional class of animals suming that insufficient oxygen was present context of protracted atmospheric evolu- is notably rare or absent: carnivores, the beforehand, increasing oxygenation would tion. New geochemical proxies will be needed postulated ecological drivers of Cambrian have made new types of animal life possible: to provide a more nuanced accounting of diversification (16). Thus, although the re- metazoans with the greater size, mineralized environmental history, and they must be dox transformation of global oceans may armor, and higher oxygen demands first complemented by expanding physiological postdate the origin of animals by more than recorded in Cambrian
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