Organically-preserved multicellular eukaryote from the early Ediacaran Nyborg Formation, Arctic Norway.

Eukaryotic multicellularity originated in the Mesoproterozoic Era and evolved multiple times since, yet early multicellular fossils are scarce until the terminal Neoproterozoic and often restricted to cases of exceptional preservation. Here we describe unusual organically-preserved fossils from mudrocks, that provide support for the presence of organisms with differentiated cells (potentially an epithelial layer) in the late Neoproterozoic. Cyathinema digermulense gen. et sp. nov. from the Nyborg Formation, Vestertana Group, Digermulen Peninsula in Arctic Norway, is a new carbonaceous organ-taxon which consists of stacked tubes with cup-shaped ends. It represents parts of a larger organism (multicellular eukaryote or a colony), likely with greater preservation potential than its other elements. Arrangement of open-ended tubes invites comparison with cells of an epithelial layer present in a variety of eukaryotic clades. This tissue may have benefitted the organism in: avoiding overgrowth, limiting fouling, reproduction, or water filtration. C. digermulense shares characteristics with extant and fossil groups including red algae and their fossils, demosponge larvae and putative sponge fossils, colonial protists, and nematophytes. Regardless of its precise affinity, C. digermulense was a complex and likely benthic marine eukaryote exhibiting cellular differentiation, and a rare occurrence of early multicellularity outside of Konservat-Lagerstätten.

Anoxic ecosystems and early eukaryotes.

Through much of the Proterozoic Eon (2.5-0.54 billion years ago, Ga), oceans were dominantly anoxic. It is often assumed that this put a brake on early eukaryote diversification because eukaryotes lived only in oxygenated habitats, which were restricted to surface waters and benthic environments near cyanobacterial mats. Studies of extant microbial eukaryotes show, however, that they are diverse and abundant in anoxic (including sulfidic) environments, often through partnerships with endo- and ectosymbiotic bacteria and archaea. Though the last common ancestor of extant eukaryotes was capable of aerobic respiration, we propose that at least some, and perhaps many, early eukaryotes were adapted to anoxic settings, and outline a way to test this with the microfossil and redox-proxy record in Proterozoic shales. This hypothesis might explain the mismatch between the record of eukaryotic body fossils, which extends back to >1.6 Ga, and the record of sterane biomarkers, which become diverse and abundant only after 659 Ma, as modern eukaryotes adapted to anoxic habitats do not make sterols (sterane precursors). In addition, an anoxic habitat might make sense for several long-ranging (>800 million years) and globally widespread eukaryotic taxa, which disappear in the late Neoproterozoic around the time oxic environments are thought to have become more widespread.