Palaeolatitudinal distribution of the Ediacaran macrobiota

Macrofossils of the late Ediacaran Period ( c. 579–539 Ma) document diverse, complex multicellular eukaryotes, including early animals, prior to Cambrian radiation metazoan phyla. To investigate relationships between environmental perturbations, biotic responses and evolutionary trajectories, it is vital distinguish ecological controls on global distribution macrofossils. The contributions temporal, palaeoenvironmental lithological factors in shaping observed variations assemblage taxonomic composition macrofossil sites are widely discussed, but role palaeogeography remains ambiguous. Here we influence palaeolatitude spatial macrobiota through using two leading palaeogeographical reconstructions. We find that overall generic diversity was distributed across all palaeolatitudes. Among specific groups, distributions candidate ‘Bilateral’ Frondomorph taxa exhibit weakly statistically significant differences low high palaeolatitudes within our favoured reconstruction, respectively, whereas Algal, Tubular, Soft-bodied Biomineralizing show no difference. recognition palaeolatitudinal certain morphogroups highlights importance considering influences when interrogating trends taxon distributions. Supplementary material: information, data code available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5488945 Thematic collection: This article part Advances Explosion collection at: https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/advances-cambrian-explosion