Phosphate biomineralization in mid-Neoproterozoic protists

By P. Cohen, J. Schopf, N. Butterfield, A. Kudryavtsev, F. Macdonald. 2011

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The origin and expansion of biomineralization in eukaryotes played a critical role in Earth history, linking biological and geochemical processes. However, the onset of this phenomenon is poorly constrained due to a limited early fossil record of biomineralization. Although macroscopic evidence for biomineralization is not known until the late Ediacaran, we here report biologically controlled phosphatic biomineralization of scale microfossils from mid-Neoproterozoic (pre-Sturtian) strata of northwest Canada. Primary biological control on mineralization is supported by the identification of apatite in both chert-hosted and limestone-hosted specimens, the conspicuously rigid original morphology of the scale microfossils relative to co-occurring organic-walled cyanobacteria and acritarchs, and the microstructure of the constituent phosphate. Cell-enveloping mineralized scales occur in a wide range of extant protists, but the apparent restriction of phosphate scales to one modern taxon of green algae suggests a possible affiliation for these fossils. Documentation of primary phosphate biomineralization in Fifteenmile Group (Yukon Territory, Canada) microfossils greatly extends the known record of biologically controlled mineralization and provides a unique window into the diversity of early eukaryotes.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Molecular Biology, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/41db092146a7a65377b6f7a0dca55728f589ecfd

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Citations in the corpus

The rise of predators (2011, background): “Work by Cohen and her colleagues has now shown that these scales (which perhaps enveloped a single-celled green alga) are between ca. 717 and ca. 812 Ma in age and composed of primary phosphate (Mac-donald et al., 2010; Cohen et al., 2011).”
Remarkable insights into the paleoecology of the Avalonian Ediacaran macrobiota (2015, unknown): “…microfossil biota in pre- and early Ediacaran sediments (e.g. Porter and Knoll, 2000; Knoll et al., 2006; Butterfield, 2009a; Bosak et al., 2011a,b; Cohen et al., 2011; Bosak et al., 2012), could be explained taphonomically; the substrates that most commonly contain Precambrian microfossils…”
Early evolution of the Eukaryota (2015, background): “Ornately constructed ‘scale microfossils’ from the middle Neoproterozoic of western Yukon, for example, are direct equivalents of the Golgi-formed scales of various modern protists (Fig. 2A; Cohen et al. 2011) and would have required a fully motorized cytoskeleton for their extracellular emplacement”
A basin redox transect at the dawn of animal life (2012, background): “A possible return to euxinia is seen at the top of the section, from strata that have yielded scale microfossils (Cohen et al., 2011).”