
What sparked the Cambrian explosion? - japaget
http://www.nature.com/news/what-sparked-the-cambrian-explosion-1.19379
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ThePhysicist
For anyone interested in the origin of life I can heartily recommend Nick
Lane's "The Vital Question", which sums up a lot of the most recent research
in this area and also briefly talks about the Cambrian explosion. Really
fascinating, deeply interesting stuff.

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cgriswald
I'm reading _Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe_ by
Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, which talks about the Cambrian explosion as
well, in the context of the search for extraterrestrial life. It's perhaps a
little dated, but a good read.

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contingencies
I live near one of the major Cambrian sites, Chengjiang in China. If anyone
collects fossils or wants to come and visit, let me know.

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cronjobber
TL;DR: A _" small, perhaps temporary, increase in oxygen"_ happened. Then _"
the advent of pervasive carnivory, made possible by oxygenation"_ managed to
_" set off an evolutionary arms race."_

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foobarbecue
And the moral of the story: _“Sitting around doing nothing becomes a
liability,” says Narbonne._

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DanielBMarkham
Because what would a science story be without adding in a little morality
lesson, right?

sigh.

<rant>When did we start doing this? Did it begin with the talking animals from
Disney? Carl Sagan and his desire to reach out to the masses? At some point
we've so mingled drama and science that even a Nature science writer can't
tell a science story without adding in a bit of either anthropomorphism or a
morality play, or both.

You know, science isn't that dull on its own. It happens to be quite
fascinating. Even without all the theatrics.</rant>

Apologies. Must be Grumpy Old Guy Day again.

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foobarbecue
Yeah, I was kidding... the article doesn't imply any relevance to humans here.
It just meant that once predators evolved to be ambulatory, prey either
followed suit or became extinct.

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Rexxar
That's why plants are moving so fast now.

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cgriswald
Plants are, by definition, not prey.

For actual prey, effective movement is an evolutionary advantage; even if
there are other useful adaptations as well.

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Rexxar
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prey](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prey) :

    
    
        3. A living thing that is eaten by another living thing.

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cgriswald
That definition is at best imprecise and at worst inaccurate. The discussion
page even shows someone objecting to that definition for the very same reason
we are having this discussion.

The terms predator and prey are defined to describe predator-prey
relationships, which are distinct (though similar) relationships to those of a
cow eating grass or a bunny eating a carrot. Your definition of prey would
include every single organism on Earth and necessitate a definition of
predator that would include nearly all heterotrophs, excluding only some
decomposers. Such definitions wouldn't be useful.

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foobarbecue
I'm going to the pet shop right now to ask for an Anomalocaris.

