Nature Communications (May 2018)

Ediacara biota flourished in oligotrophic and bacterially dominated marine environments across Baltica

  • Kelden Pehr,
  • Gordon D. Love,
  • Anton Kuznetsov,
  • Victor Podkovyrov,
  • Christopher K. Junium,
  • Leonid Shumlyanskyy,
  • Tetyana Sokur,
  • Andrey Bekker

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04195-8
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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The environments and food sources that sustained Ediacara biota 575-541 million years ago remain unclear. Here, the authors perform lipid biomarker and isotopic analyses on biota fossil-containing Ediacaran strata from Baltica and propose the presence of a microbial loop bolstered by bacteria.