Abstract
Hypoxic tolerance experiments may be helpful to constrain the oxygen requirement for animal evolution. Based on literature review, available data demonstrate that fishes are more sensitive to hypoxia than crustaceans and echinoderms, which in turn are more sensitive than annelids, whilst mollusks are the least sensitive. Mortalities occur where O2 concentrations are below 2.0 mg/L, equivalent to saturation with oxygen content about 25% PAL (present atmospheric level). Therefore, the minimal oxygen requirement for maintaining animal diversity since Cambrian is determined as 25% PAL. The traditional view is that a rise in atmospheric oxygen concentrations led to the oxygenation of the ocean, thus triggering the evolution of animals. Geological and geochemical studies suggest a constant increase of the oxygen level and a contraction of anoxic oceans during Ediacaran–Cambrian transition when the world oceans experienced a rapid diversification of metazoan lineages. However, fossil first appearances of animal phyla are obviously asynchronous and episodic, showing a sequence as: basal metazoans>lophotrochozoans>ecdysozoans and deuterostomes. According to hitherto known data of fossil record and hypoxic sensitivity of animals, the appearance sequence of different animals is broadly consistent with their hypoxic sensitivity: animals like molluscs and annelids that are less sensitive to hypoxia appeared earlier, while animals like echinoderms and fishes that are more sensitive to hypoxia came later. Therefore, it is very likely that the appearance order of animals is corresponding to the increasing oxygen level and/or the contraction of anoxic oceans during Ediacaran–Cambrian transition.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Antcliffe, J. B., Callow, R. H. T., Brasier, M. D., 2014. Giving the Early Fossil Record of Sponges A Squeeze. Biological Reviews, 89: 972–1004
Berkner, L. V., Marshall, L. C., 1965. On the Origin and Rise of Oxygen Concentration in the Earth’s Atmosphere. Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, 22: 225–261
Blair, J. E., 2009. Animals (Metazoa). In: Hedges, S. B., Kumar, S., eds., The Timetree of Life. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 223–230
Braddy, S. J., Poschmann, M., Tetlie, O. E., 2008. Giant Claw Reveals the Largest Ever Arthropod. Biology Letter, 4: 106–109
Butterfield, N. J., 2009. Oxygen, Animals and Oceanic Ventilation: An Alternative View. Geobiology, 7: 1–7
Campbell, I. H., Allen, C. M., 2008. Formation of Supercontinents Linked to Increases in Atmospheric Oxygen. Nature Geoscience, 1: 554–558
Campbell, I. H., Squire, R. J., 2010. The Mountains that Triggered the Late Neoproterozoic Increase in Oxygen: the Second Great Oxidation Event. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 74: 4187–4206
Canfield, D. E., 2005. The Early History of Atmospheric Oxygen: Homage to Robert M. Garrels. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science, 33: 1–36
Canfield, D. E., Poulton, S. W., Narbonne, G. M., 2007. Late-Neoproterozoic Deep-Ocean Oxygenation and the Rise of Animal Life. Science, 315: 92–95
Catling, D. C., Glein, C. R., Zahnle, K. J., et al., 2005. Why O2 Is Required by Complex Life on Habitable Planets and the Concept of Planetary “Oxygenation Time”. Astrobiology, 5: 415–438
Chen, X., Ling, H. F., Vance, D., et al., 2015. Rise to Modern Levels of Ocean Oxygenation Coincided with the Cambrian Radiation of Animals. Nature Communications, 6:7142 (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8142)
Cloud, P. E Jr., 1948. Some Problems and Patterns of Evolution Exemplified by Fossil Invertebrates. Evolution, 2: 322–350
Cloud, P. E., 1976. Beginnings of Biospheric Evolution and Their Biogeochemical Consequences. Paleobiology, 2: 351–387
Conway M. S., Peel, J. S., 2008. The Earliest Annelids: Lower Cambrian Polychaetes from the Sirius Passet Lagerstätte, Peary Land, North Greenland. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 53: 137–148
Danovaro, R., Dell’Anno, A., Pusceddu, A., Gambi, C., Heiner, I., Kristensen, R.M., 2010. The First Metazoa Living in Permanently Anoxic Conditions. BMC Biology, 8: 30.
Decker, H., van Holde, K. E., 2011. Oxygen and the Evolution of Life. Springer, Berlin. 172
Diaz, R. J., Rosenberg, R., 1995. Marine Benthic Hypoxia: A Review of Its Ecological Effects and the Behavioural Responses of Benthic Macrofauna. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 33: 245–303
Dries, R. R., Theede, H., 1974. Sauerstoffmangelresistenz Mariner Bodenvertebraten aus der Westlichen Ostsee. Marine Biology, 25: 327–333
Erwin, D. H., Laflamme, M., Tweedt, S. M., et al. 2011. The Cambrian Conundrum: Early Divergence and Later Ecological Success in the Early History of Animals. Science, 334: 1901–1907
Erwin, D. H., Tweedt, S., 2012. Ecological Drivers of the Ediacaran-Cambrian Diversification of Metazoa. Evolutionary Ecology, 26: 417–433
Erwin, D. H., Valentine, J. W., 2013. The Cambrian Explosion: the Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Roberts and Company Publishers, Inc., Greenwood Village. 406
Fedonkin, M. A., Waggoner, B. M., 1997. The Late Precambrian Fossil Kimberella Is a Mollusc-Like Bilaterian Organism. Nature, 388: 868–871
Feng, L. J., Li, C., Huang, J., et al., 2014. A sulfate Control on Marine Mid-Depth Euxinia on the Early Cambrian (Ca. 529-521 Ma) Yangtze Platform, South China. Precambrian Research, 246: 123–133
Gray, J. S., Wu, R. S., Or, Y. Y., 2002. Effects of Hypoxia and Organic Enrichment on the Coastal Marine Environment. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 238: 249–270
Henriksson, R., 1969. Influence of Pollution on the Bottom Fauna of the Sound (Öresund). Oikos, 20: 507–523
Hua, H., Chen, Z., Yuan, X. L., et al., 2005. Skeletogenesis and Asexual Reproduction in the Earliest Biomineralizing Animal Cloudina. Geology, 33: 277–280
Jin, C. S., Li, C., Peng, X. F., et al., 2014. Spatiotemporal Variability of Ocean Chemistry in the Early Cambrian, South China. Science China: Earth Science, 57: 579–591
Kasting, J. F., 1993. Earth’s Early Atmosphere. Science, 259: 920–926
Kendall, B., Anbar, A. D., Kappler, A., et al., 2012. The Global Iron Cycle. In: Knoll, A. H., Canfield, D. E., Konhauser, K. O., eds., Fundamentals of Geobiology. Wiley-Blackewll, Oxford. 65–92
Knoll, A. H., Sperling, E. A., 2014. Oxygen and Animals in Earth History. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111: 3907–3908
Knoll, A.H., Carroll, S.B., 1999. Early Animal Evolution: Emerging Views from Comparative Biology and Geology. Science, 284: 2129–2137
Knoll, A. H., Walter, M. R., 1992. Latest Proterozoic Stratigraphy and Earth History. Nature, 356: 673–678
Kouchinsky, A., Bengtson, S., Clausen, S., et al., 2015. A Lower Cambrian Fauna of Skeletal Fossils from the Emyaksin Formation, Northern Siberia. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica (in press).
Kouchinsky, A., Bengtson, S., Runnegar, B., et al., 2012. Chronology of Early Cambrian Biomineralization. Geological Magazine, 149: 221–251
Kump, L. R., 2008. The Rise of Atmospheric Oxygen. Nature, 451: 277–278
Landing, E., Geyer, G., Brasier, M. D., et al., 2013. Cambrian Evolutionary Radiation: Context, Correlation, and Chronostratigraphy—Overcoming Deficiencies of the First Appearance Datum (FAD) Concept. Earth-Science Reviews, 123: 133–172
Li, C., Love, G. D., Lyons, T. W., et al., 2010. A Stratified Redox Model for the Ediacaran Ocean. Science, 328: 80–83
Li, Z. X., Powell, C. M., 2001. An Outline of the Palaeongeographic Evolution of the Australasian Region since the Beginning of the Neoproterozoic. Earth-Science Review, 53: 237–277
Ling, H. F., Chen, X., Li, D., et al., 2013. Cerium Anomaly Variations in Ediacaran–Earliest Cambrian Carbonates from the Yangtze Gorges Area, South China: Implications for Oxygenation of Coeval Shallow Seawater. Precambrian Research, 225: 110–127
Love, G. D., Grosjean, E., Fike, D. A., et al., 2009. Fossil Steroid Record the Appearance of Demospongiae during the Cryogenian Period. Nature, 457: 718–721
Lyons, T. W., Reinhard, C. T., Love, G. D., et al., 2012. Geobiology of the Proterozoic Eon. In: Knoll, A. H., Canfield, D. E., Konhauser, K. O., eds., Fundamentals of Geobiology. Wiley-Blackewll, Oxford. 371–402
Mángano, M. G., Buatois, L. A., 2014. Decoupling of Body-Plan Diversification and Ecological Structuring during the Ediacaran–Cambrian Transition: Evolutionary and Geobiological Feedbacks. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281, 20140038.
Meert, J. G., 2003. Proterozoic East Gondwana: Supercontinent Assembly and Breakup. Special Publication 206, Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 84: 372
Meert, J. G., 2011. Gondwanaland, Formation. In: Reitner, J., Thiel, V., eds., Encyclopedia of Geobiology, Springer, Berlin. 434–436
Mentel, M., Martin, W., 2010. Anaerobic Animals from an Ancient, Anoxic Ecological Niche. BMC Biology, 8: 32
Miller D. C., Poucher SL., Coiro L., et al., 1995. Effects of Hypoxia on Growth and Survival of Crustaceans and Fishes of Long Island Sound. In: McElroy A., Zeidner J., eds., Proceedings of the Long Island Sound Research Conference: Is the Sound Getting Better or Worse. New York Sea Grant Institute, Stony Brook, NY, p1–92
Mills, D. B, Ward, L. M., Jones, C. A., et al., 2014. Oxygen Requirements of the Earliest Animals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111: 4168–4172
Nielsen, C., 2012 (3rd edition). Animal Evolution: Interrelationships of the Living Phyla. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 402
Papineau, D., 2010. Global Biogeochemical Changes at Both Ends of the Proterozoic: Insights from Phosphorites. Astrobiology, 10: 165–181
Partin, C. A., Bekker, A., Planavsky, N. J., et al., 2013. Large-Scale Fluctuations in Precambrian Atmospheric and Oceanic Oxygen Levels from the Record of U in Shales. Earth and Planetary Science Letter, 369–370: 284–293
Petsch, S. T., 2004. The Global Oxygen Cycle. In: Schlesinger, W. H., ed., Biogeochemistry. Treatise on Geochemistry, 8: 515–555
Planavsky, N. J., Rouxel, O. J., Bekker, A., et al., 2010. The Evolution of the Marine Phosphate Reservoir. Nature, 467: 1088–1090
Rhoads, D. C., Morse, J. W., 1971. Evolutionary and Ecological Significance of Oxygen-Deficient Marine Basins. Lethaia, 4: 413–428
Rogers, J. J. W., Santosh, M., 2004. Continents and Supercontinents. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 289
Rosenberg, R., 1972. Benthic Faunal Recovery in a Swedish Fjord Following the Closure of a Sulphite Pulp Mill. Oikos, 23: 92–108
Runnegar, B., 1982. Oxygen Requirements, Biology and Phylogenetic Significance of the Late Precambrian Worm Dickinsonia, and the Evolution of the Burrowing Habit. Alcheringa, 6: 223–239
Runnegar, B., 1991. Precambrian Oxygen Levels Estimated from the Biochemistry and Physiology of Early Eukaryotes. Global and Planetary Change, 97: 97–111
Shu, D. G., Luo, H. L., Conway Morris, S., et al., 1999. Lower Cambrian Vertebrates from South China. Nature, 402: 42–46
Shu, D. G., Isozaki, Y., Zhang, X. L., et al., 2014. Birth and Early Evolution of Metazoans. Gondwana Research, 25: 884–895
Skovsted, C., B., Peel, J. S., 2011. Hyolithellus in life position from the Lower Cambrian of North Greenland. Journal of Paleontology, 85: 37–47
Sperling, E. A., Frieder, C. A., Raman, A. V., 2013a. Oxygen, Ecology, and the Cambrian Radiation of Animals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110: 13446–13451
Sperling, E. A., Halverson, G. P., Knoll., A. H., et al., 2013b. A Basin Redox Transect at the Dawn of Animal Life. Earth and Planetary Science Letter, 371–372: 143–155
Wang, J. G., Chen, D. Z., Yan, D. T., et al., 2012. Evolution from An Anoxic to Oxic Deep Ocean during the Ediacaran–Cambrian Transition and Implications for Bioradiation. Chemical Geology, 306: 129–138
Wang, H., Li, C., Hu, C., et al., 2015. Spurious Thermoluminescence Characteristics of the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation (Ca. 635–551 Ma) and Its Implications for Marine Dissolved Organic Carbon Reservoir. Journal of Earth Science, 26(6): 883–892
Wen, H. J., Carignan, J., Chu, X. L., et al., 2014. Selenium Isotopes Trace Anoxic and Ferruginous Seawater Conditions in the Early Cambrian. Chemical Geology, 390: 164–172
Wang, Y., Wang, X. L., Wang, Y., 2015. Cambrian Ichnofossils from the Zhoujieshan Formation (Quanji Group) Overlying Tillites in the Northern Margin of the Qaidam Basin, NW China. Journal of Earth Science, 26(2): 203–210
Wray, G. A., 2015. Molecular Clocks and the Early Evolution of Metazoan Nervous Systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series B, 370 (150046), 1–11
Yang, B., Steiner, M., Li, G. X., et al., 2014. Terreneuvian Small Shelly Faunas of East Yunnan (South China) and Their Biostratigraphic Implications. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 398: 28–58
Yin, Z. J., Zhu, M. Y., Davidson, E. H., et al., 2015. Sponge Grade Body Fossil with Cellular Resolution Dating 60 Myr before the Cambrian. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112: E1453–1460
Zhang, X. L., Shu, D. G., 2014. Causes and Consequences of the Cambrian Explosion. Science China—Earth Sciences, 57: 930–942
Zhang, X., Shu, D., Han, J., et al., 2014. Triggers for the Cambrian Explosion: Hypotheses and Problems. Gondwana Research, 25: 896–909
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, X., Cui, L. Oxygen requirements for the Cambrian explosion. J. Earth Sci. 27, 187–195 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-016-0690-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-016-0690-8