Edinburgh Research Explorer There is no such thing as the 'Ediacara Biota' Citation for published version: MacGabhann, BA 2014, 'There is no such thing as the 'Ediacara Biota'', Geoscience Frontiers, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 53-62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2013.08.001 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1016/j.gsf.2013.08.001 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Published In: Geoscience Frontiers Publisher Rights Statement: Open Access General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 08. Oct. 2021 Geoscience Frontiers 5 (2014) 53e62 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect China University of Geosciences (Beijing) Geoscience Frontiers journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gsf Focus paper There is no such thing as the ‘Ediacara Biota’ Breandán Anraoi MacGabhann* School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, King’s Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK article info abstract Article history: The term ‘Ediacara Biota’ (or many variants thereof) is commonly used to refer to certain megascopic Received 26 June 2013 fossils of Precambrian and early Palaeozoic age e but what does the term actually mean? What differ- Received in revised form entiates a non-Ediacaran ‘Ediacaran’ and an Ediacaran ‘Ediacaran’ from an Ediacaran non-‘Ediacaran’? 8 August 2013 Historically, the term has been used in either a geographic, stratigraphic, taphonomic, or biologic sense. Accepted 14 August 2013 More recent research and new discoveries, however, mean that the term cannot actually be defined on Available online 23 August 2013 any of these bases, or any combination thereof. Indeed, the term is now used and understood in a manner which is internally inconsistent, and unintentionally implies that these fossils are somehow distinct from Keywords: Ediacara Biota other fossil assemblages, which is simply not the case. Continued use of the term is a historical relic, ‘ ’ Ediacaran which has led in part to incorrect assumptions that the Ediacara Biota can be treated as a single coherent Cambrian group, has obscured our understanding of the biological change over the PrecambrianeCambrian Metazoan evolution boundary, and has confused research on the early evolution of the Metazoa. In the future, the term Terminal Precambrian mass extinction ‘Ediacaran’ should be restricted to purely stratigraphic usage, regardless of affinity, geography, or taphonomy; sufficient terminology also exists where reference to specimens on a geographic, tapho- nomic, or biologic basis is required. It is therefore time to abandon the term ‘Ediacara Biota’ and to instead treat equally all of the fossils of the Ediacaran System. Ó 2013, China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction that it was realised that these Australian fossils were older than had initially been presumed. Despite the discovery of Precambrian fossils in England in 1848 Principally through the efforts of Prof. Martin Glaessner (Eskrigge, 1868; Ford, 2008), in Newfoundland in 1868 (Billings, (Glaessner, 1958, 1959; Glaessner and Dailly, 1959), the Australian 1872; Gehling et al., 2000), and in Namibia in 1908 (Gürich, 1929; fossils rapidly became internationally famous, with descriptions Grazhdankin and Seilacher, 2005; Vickers-Rich et al., 2013), the extending beyond academic journals into the pages of popular- prevailing orthodoxy in the first half of the 20th century held that science publications such as Scientific American (Glaessner, 1961). strata older than Cambrian in age were uniformly devoid of evi- Since then, purportedly similar fossil assemblages have been found dence of life. It was thus the case that upon the discovery of fossils in numerous localities worldwide, including Russia, Canada, and in the Ediacara Hills, Flinders Ranges, South Australia, by Reg Sprigg the United States (reviewed by Waggoner, 1999; see also Narbonne, in 1946 (Sprigg, 1947, 1948, 1949; see also Turner and Oldroyd, 2005; Xiao and Laflamme, 2009). It is testament to the work of 2009), the host strata were automatically presumed to be early Glaessner and his colleagues that, despite both this worldwide Cambrian in age. It was only with the rediscovery of fossils in un- distribution and the prior discovery of Precambrian fossils else- doubtedly Precambrian strata in England in 1957 (Ford, 1958, 2008) where, such fossils are now generally referred to as the ‘Ediacara Biota’. But what does this phrase actually mean? * Tel.: þ44 131 6 508543. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]. 2. The rise of the ‘Ediacara Biota’ term Peer-review under responsibility of China University of Geosciences (Beijing) Several different variants of the term ‘Ediacara Biota’ have been used over the past several decades e including ‘Ediacara Fauna’, ‘Ediacaran Fauna’, ‘Ediacarian Fauna’, ‘Ediacara Biota’, ‘Ediacaran Production and hosting by Elsevier Biota’, ‘Vendian Fauna’, ‘Vendian Biota’, ‘Ediacara(n) fossils’, 1674-9871/$ e see front matter Ó 2013, China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and Peking University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2013.08.001 54 B.A. MacGabhann / Geoscience Frontiers 5 (2014) 53e62 ‘Ediacara(n)-type fossils’, and referring to the fossils as ‘Ediacarans’ worldwide is less clear, but it is likely due to a combination of the e often with quite different meanings. age of the fossils (the only Precambrian megascopic remains known The first usage of such nomenclature appears to have been by at that time), the broad faunal similarity of the other assemblages to Glaessner (1958), who referred to the Flinders Ranges fossils e then the South Australian fossils (as distinct from later fossil commu- still thought to be lower Cambrian in age e as the ‘Ediacara Fauna’. nities), and perhaps most importantly, their taphonomic style. However, the phrase rapidly became the preferred term to refer Indeed, the preservation of the fossils as moulds and casts in more broadly to the purportedly similar fossil assemblages sandstones, a taphonomic style then thought to be unique to the worldwide, in addition to the Australian fossils. For example, Precambrian, would originally have seemed a compelling reason Fischer (1965, p. 1206), in discussing whether any known fossils for considering such fossil assemblages as a single group (the were Precambrian in age stated: “The Ediacara fauna deserves spe- preservation-based definition). cial consideration. Elements of this fauna occur in Africa, Europe, and Glaessner and colleagues (summarised in Glaessner, 1984) North America”, and Zaika-Novatskiy et al. (1968) described the regarded these fossils as ancestral members of modern metazoan “First member of the Ediacara Fauna in the Vendian of the Russian phyla, and so no significant biological distinction was intended by Platform”. Glaessner (1971) himself soon adopted this expanded the use of the term ‘Ediacara Fauna’. However, biology may have meaning, noting, for example, that “the most numerous finds of played a role in the terminological shift from ‘fauna’ to ‘biota’.A fossils belonging to the Ediacara fauna have been made in South-West controversy over the biological interpretation of the fossils was Africa in the Kuibis Quartzite of the Nama Series” (p. 509). Such usage sparked initially by Seilacher (1984, 1989, 1992), who proposed that still persists today; e.g. “Some representatives of the Ediacara fauna they were not metazoans, but were rather members of an extinct have been later re-interpreted as pseudofossils” (van Loon, 2008,p. Kingdom, the Vendozoa (later renamed Vendobionta by Buss and 175); “The first appearance of Ediacara fauna is thought to have fol- Seilacher, 1994). Subsequently, alternative non-metazoan in- lowed the last of the w750e635 Ma Neoproterozoic glacial episodes terpretations as protists (Zhuravlev, 1993), fungi (Peterson et al., by 20e30 million years” (Meert et al., 2011, p. 867). 2003), and, bizarrely, even lichens (Retallack, 1994), were pro- The ‘Ediacaran Fauna’ spelling variation was introduced by posed. It is possible that increased use of ‘biota’ in place of ‘fauna’ Cloud and Abelson (1961) (“the diversified Ediacaran fauna of South reflected such non-metazoan palaeobiological interpretations of Australia is at its oldest very late Precambrian and may well be early the fossils e although it should be noted that the phrase ‘Ediacara Cambrian”; p. 1706), and also continues to be used today e e.g. “It is Biota’ precedes the Seilacherian controversy (e.g. “Annulated uncertain whether the Ediacaran fauna was the spark of biological worms, medusoids, and frondlike fossils constitute most of the Edia- diversity that ignited the following Cambrian explosion or was an caran biota”; McMenamin, 1982, p. 290). It is also quite