The Weirdest Theory Yet for Why Life on Earth Suddenly Exploded
Paleontologists suggest that the rapid evolution of life during the Cambrian period may have been fueled by the accumulation of fecal matter. This waste helped distribute nutrients throughout ancient oceans, potentially supporting the development of complex digestive systems in early animals.
Why it matters
It offers a novel scientific perspective on one of the most significant evolutionary events in Earth's history.
In the first 20 million years of the Cambrian period, Earth experienced an explosion of life—a great evolutionary era dubbed the Cambrian Explosion. Scientists have differing views on what drove this phenomenon, but this one may be the strangest one yet: poop. Literally. Just a sh*t ton of poop.
Specifically, a slow accumulation of fecal matter—poop—helped allocate organic material and nutrients throughout the ocean, which in turn made marine environments ripe for the birth and evolution of life. The findings , published yesterday in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, suggest a key connection between the distribution of fossilized feces and the emergence of animals with complex digestive systems.
“Next to rising oxygen levels and other contributing factors, the importance of feces in ancient ecosystems is often overlooked,” Russell Bicknell, the study’s co-author and a paleontologist at Flinders University in Australia, said in a statement .
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