If there was ever a time to destigmatise talking about poo… This is it. After all, how can we exist as complex life on Earth without understanding the key role that poo plays not only in our lives but, actually, in our very existence?
A new study published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution has revealed that a giant ‘poop explosion’ may have influenced the period of time when most major animal groups emerged on Earth.
Researchers from Flinders University in Australia have suggested that a build-up of poo from primitive sea creatures was a likely trigger for the Cambrian explosion – which marked a rapid expansion of different forms of life on our planet – around 450 million years ago.
How poo played a role in evolution
Russell Bicknell, an evolutionary biologist at Flinders University, said: “Next to rising oxygen levels and other contributing factors, the importance of faeces in ancient ecosystems is often overlooked.”
Researchers believe prehistoric poo encouraged the evolution and diversification of marine life – and that ancient diets and “increasingly sophisticated digestive systems” can help explain “how more organic matter and nutrients poured into the ancient oceans to accelerate ecosystem development” during the early Cambrian period.
What was the Cambrian explosion?
The Natural History Museum explains that the Cambrian explosion happened more than 500 million years ago and “was when most of the major animal groups started to appear in the fossil record, a time of rapid expansion of different forms of life on Earth”.
Dr Greg Edgecombe, merit researcher at the museum, said: “It’s when most of the few dozen major animal body plans first appear in the fossil record and diversify, but it’s actually more than that.
“It is a time of body plan innovation and of diversification, but it is also an ecological phenomenon as life responded to changing environmental conditions.”
And how life responded to a wealth of poo, apparently.
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