Cambrian Explosion: not from Ediacarans (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 27, 2015, 15:36 (3376 days ago) @ David Turell

This complex review article from Chinese research shows how simplistic were the multicellular organisms of the Ediacaran period. The Cambrian was a true explosion of complexity:-http://nsr.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/4/498.full.pdf+html-"We conclude that Megasphaera is a multicellular eukaryote with evidence for
cell-to-cell adhesion, a flexible membrane unconstrained by a rigid cell wall, spatial cellular differentiation,germ-soma separation, and programmed cell death. These features are inconsistent with the bacterium,unicellular protist, and mesomycetozoean-like holozoan interpretations. Thus, the surviving hypotheses,
particularly the stem-group animal and algal interpretations, should be further tested with additional evidence. The Weng'an biota also hosts cellularly differentiated pseudoparenchymatous thalli with specialized reproductive structures indicative of an affinity with florideophyte red algae. The other Weng'an
fossils reviewed here may also be multicellular eukaryotes, although direct cellular evidence is lacking in some and phylogenetic affinities are poorly constrained in others. The Weng'an biota offers many research opportunities to resolve the life histories and phylogenetic diversity of early multicellular eukaryotes and to
illuminate the evolutionary prelude to the Cambrian explosion."-In other words some cell function differentiation