{"id":614678,"date":"2026-09-28T21:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T21:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/614678\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T21:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T21:16:09","slug":"chemosymbiosis-between-animals-and-microbes-may-predate-the-cambrian-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/614678\/","title":{"rendered":"Chemosymbiosis between Animals and Microbes May Predate the Cambrian: Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tubular marine creature that lived on the seafloor more than 540 million years ago may have survived in toxic, sulfur-rich waters by teaming up with bacteria.<\/p>\n

\"Reconstruction<\/a><\/p>\n

Reconstruction of Conotubus hemiannulatus and its symbiotic relationship with sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. Image credit: David Fike.<\/p>\n

The ancient animal, known as Conotubus hemiannulatus<\/a>, lived in the final stretch of the Ediacaran period, shortly before the Cambrian explosion of animal life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe phylogenetic affinity of Conotubus hemiannulatus remains uncertain,\u201d said Nanjing University\u2019s Dr. Yongbo Peng, Virginia Tech\u2019s Dr. Shuhai Xiao, and their colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been assigned to the family Cloudinidae or to the informal group of cloudinomorphs, based on its funnel-in-funnel tubular morphology, which is reminiscent of Cloudina, a contemporaneous tubular fossil with a global distribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The creature\u2019s fossils were found in the Dengying Formation<\/a> in Shaanxi province, southern China.<\/p>\n

They were preserved as pyrite (fool\u2019s gold), which formed quickly as the organisms were buried.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecimens range in length from 3 to 80 mm, with apertural diameters of 0.3 to 12 mm and apical diameters of 0.1 to 4 mm,\u201d the paleontologists said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome specimens exhibit transverse annulations or apertural rims, potentially reflecting periodic growth or taphonomic modification.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the new study, the researchers analyzed molybdenum isotopes in the specimens.<\/p>\n

They found that, compared with contemporaneous Ediacaran seawater, the fossils were strongly depleted in molybdenum-98, by more than 4.6 parts per thousand.<\/p>\n

Such low values are otherwise known from modern tube worms at deep-sea cold seeps, which host sulfur-oxidizing bacteria in their tissues.<\/p>\n

The fossils\u2019 sulfur signatures suggest Conotubus hemiannulatus lived where oxygen and sulfide overlapped, and that bacteria were actively processing sulfur in their habitat.<\/p>\n

The scientists concluded that the Ediacaran animal may have engaged in chemosymbiosis, a partnership in which microbes convert chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide into food for their host.<\/p>\n

They describe it as the earliest geochemically supported case in the fossil record.<\/p>\n

Such a partnership could also have helped the animal cope with sulfide, which is toxic to most animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a whole host of organisms that have these partnerships in the environment today,\u201d said co-author Professor David Fike, a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreviously, we didn\u2019t know if that is a relatively recent evolutionary event, or if that emerged all the way back when animals first evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results<\/a> appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Zhenfei Wang et al. 2026. Chemosymbiotic trophic strategy in an Ediacaran tubular animal. PNAS 123 (35): e2526201123; doi: 10.1073\/pnas.2526201123<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tubular marine creature that lived on the seafloor more than 540 million years ago may have survived…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2865,43788,302855,607,302856,302857,302858,302859,43787,238159,116724,212636,302860,111,139,69,302861,147,62377],"class_list":["post-614678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-bacteria","tag-cambrian-explosion","tag-chemosymbiosis","tag-china","tag-cloudinidae","tag-conotubus","tag-conotubus-hemiannulatus","tag-dengying-formation","tag-ediacaran","tag-ediacaran-biota","tag-hydrogen-sulfide","tag-molybdenum","tag-molybdenum-98","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pyrite","tag-science","tag-sulfur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}