paleobiology

Artistic reconstruction of a late Triassic undersea scene before (left) and after (right) a climate change-related extinction event. Credit: Maija KaralaA recent study has leveraged the fossil record to gain insights into the characteristics that render animals more susceptible to extinction due to climate change. This research aims to pinpoint the species currently most endangered by anthropogenic climate change. The findings have recently been published in the journal Science.Past climate change (often caused by natural…

A drill core sample from the Barberton greenstone belt used in the study. The dark layers contain particles of carbonaceous matter, the altered remains from Palaeoarchaean microorganisms. Credit: Manuel ReinhardtThe research team has discovered complex microbial communities in ecosystems dating back over 3 billion years.Microorganisms are believed to be Earth’s earliest life forms, with evidence embedded in rocks that are 3.5 billion years old. These rocks contain geochemical and morphological markers, like specific…

Rocks hundreds of metres beneath the Australian Outback have yielded clues to a lost world of primitive microbes that once populated the world’s oceans and might have eventually given rise to modern plants and animals. Analysis of fat-like molecules isolated from the rocks suggests that they were made by a previously undiscovered, ancient population of organisms called eukaryotes, the group of living things whose cells typically contain a nucleus and other internal compartments. The molecules are 1.6 billion years old…