New research reveals the first massive extinction in humankind, which happened millions of years ago than scientists believed, was caused by environmental changes. Earth is currently experiencing a mass extinction of species, losing countless species annually.
During the ending period of the Cretaceous epoch, approximately 65+ million years ago, most dinosaurs notably vanished. A huge number of Earth’s species were wiped off before that, around 252 million years ago, between the Triassic and Permian eras.
Researchers from Virginia Tech and the University of California-Riverside (UCR) claim that a comparable extinction happened 550 million years ago, while in the Ediacaran epoch era.
The proportion of organisms destroyed is comparable to these earlier occurrences, including the existing, ongoing one. Still, it is uncertain if this marks a true “mass extinction,” according to researchers in an article posted in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Ediacaran animals, the first sophisticated, multicellular living beings on this planet, are thought to have lost about 80% of their total population due to environmental changes.
Only a few creatures that survived had bodies designed for lower oxygen settings, according to Chenyi Tu, a UCR palaeontologist and research co-author. “Geological records suggest that the earth’s oceans lost quite a lot of oxygen during the same time,” she said.
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In contrast to later ones, this early event was more challenging to record since the organisms that died had soft bodies and did not fare very well in the geologic record. According to UCR paleoecologist and research co-author Rachel Surprenant, “We anticipated
such an event, but to confirm it, we had to build a large evidence database.”
To get this result, the scientists studied almost every reported Ediacaran animal’s surroundings, body size, nutrition, mobility, and habits. By modern standards, Ediacaran creatures are thought to be weird. Though several animals were mobile, none resembled any living things today.
Among these were Attenborites janeae, a tiny ovoid like a raisin called after English naturalist Sir David Attenborough, and Obamus coronatus, a disc-shaped species named for the former president.
“These creatures were Earth’s first attempt at evolution, but they perished after only a few million years. In terms of evolution, not very long, “said Mary Droser, a paleoecologist at UCR.
The study’s co-author and UC Riverside geologist Phillip Boan said, “We can observe the impact of climate change on ecosystems and should notice the destructive effects as we plan for the future.”
