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Ediacaran distributions in space and time: testing assemblage concepts of earliest macroscopic body fossils

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2016

Thomas H. Boag ,
Simon A. F. Darroch  and
Marc Laflamme
Thomas H. Boag
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Ontario, L5L 1C6, Canada. E-mail: tomboag@stanford.edu, marc.laflamme@utoronto.ca.
Simon A. F. Darroch
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Vanderbilt University, 5726 Stevenson Center, 7th Floor, Nashville, Tennessee, 37240, U.S.A. E-mail: simon.a.darroch@vanderbilt.edu
Marc Laflamme
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Ontario, L5L 1C6, Canada. E-mail: tomboag@stanford.edu, marc.laflamme@utoronto.ca.
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Abstract

The mid-late Ediacaran Period (~579–541 Ma) is characterized by globally distributed marine soft-bodied organisms of unclear phylogenetic affinities colloquially called the “Ediacara biota.” Despite an absence of systematic agreement, previous workers have tested for underlying factors that may control the occurrence of Ediacaran macrofossils in space and time. Three taxonomically distinct “assemblages,” termed the Avalon, White Sea, and Nama, were identified and informally incorporated into Ediacaran biostratigraphy. After ~15 years of new fossil discoveries and taxonomic revision, we retest the validity of these assemblages using a comprehensive database of Ediacaran macrofossil occurrences. Using multivariate analysis, we also test the degree to which taphonomy, time, and paleoenvironment explain the taxonomic composition of these assemblages. We find that: (1) the three assemblages remain distinct taxonomic groupings; (2) there is little support for a large-scale litho-taphonomic bias present in the Ediacaran; and (3) there is significant chronostratigraphic overlap between the taxonomically and geographically distinct Avalonian and White Sea assemblages ca. 560–557 Ma. Furthermore, both assemblages show narrow bathymetric ranges, reinforcing that they were paleoenvironmental–ecological biotopes and spatially restricted in marine settings. Meanwhile, the Nama assemblage appears to be a unique faunal stage, defined by a global loss of diversity, coincident with a noted expansion of bathymetrically unrestricted, long-ranging Ediacara taxa. These data reinforce that Ediacaran biodiversity and stratigraphic ranges of its representative taxa must first statistically account for varying likelihood of preservation at a local scale to ultimately aggregate the Ediacaran macrofossil record into a global biostratigraphic context.

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Paleobiology , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , November 2016 , pp. 574 - 594
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Copyright © 2016 The Paleontological Society. All rights reserved 

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