The broad-scale environment plays a substantial role in shaping modern marine ecosystems, but the degree to which palaeocommunities were influenced by their environment is unclear. To investigate how broad-scale environment influenced the community ecology of early animal ecosystems we employed spatial point process analyses to examine the community structure of seven bedding-plane assemblages of late Ediacaran age (558–550 Ma), drawn from a range of environmental settings and global localities. The studied palaeocommunities exhibit marked differences in the response of their component taxa to sub-metre-scale habitat heterogeneities on the seafloor. Shallow-marine palaeocommunities were heavily influenced by local habitat heterogeneities, in contrast to their deep-water counterparts. Lower species richness in deep-water Ediacaran assemblages compared to shallow-water counterparts across the studied time-interval could have been driven by this environmental patchiness, because habitat heterogeneities correspond to higher diversity in modern marine environments. The presence of grazers and detritivores within shallow-water communities may have promoted local patchiness, potentially initiating a chain of increasing heterogeneity of benthic communities from shallow to deep-marine depositional environments. Our results provide quantitative support for the “Savannah” hypothesis for early animal diversification – whereby Ediacaran diversification was driven by patchiness in the local benthic environment.

中文翻译：

---

环境设置对埃迪卡拉动物群落生态的影响

广泛的环境在塑造现代海洋生态系统中发挥着重要作用，但目前尚不清楚古群落受到其环境影响的程度。为了研究大范围环境如何影响早期动物生态系统的群落生态，我们采用了空间点过程分析，研究了从一系列环境中抽取的7个Ediacaran晚期（558-550 Ma）的地垫平面组合的群落结构。和全球各地。所研究的古群落在其组成分类单元对海底亚米尺度生境异质性的响应中表现出显着差异。与深海古生物相比，浅海古生物群落受到当地生境异质性的严重影响。在整个研究时间间隔内，深水埃迪卡拉动物群的物种丰富度低于浅水对应物种，这可能是由于这种环境斑块所致，因为栖息地异质性对应于现代海洋环境中更高的多样性。浅水群落中放牧者和有害生物的存在可能促进了局部斑块，潜在地引发了从浅海沉积到深海沉积环境底栖生物群落不断增加的异质性链。我们的结果为早期动物多样化的“热带稀树草原”假说提供了定量的支持-埃迪卡拉安的多样化是由当地底栖环境中的斑块驱动的。因为栖息地异质性对应于现代海洋环境中更高的多样性。浅水群落中放牧者和有害生物的存在可能促进了局部斑块，潜在地引发了从浅海到深海沉积环境底栖生物群落不断增加的异质性链。我们的结果为早期动物多样化的“热带稀树草原”假说提供了定量的支持-埃迪卡拉安的多样化是由当地底栖环境中的斑块驱动的。因为栖息地异质性对应于现代海洋环境中更高的多样性。浅水群落中放牧者和有害生物的存在可能促进了局部斑块，潜在地引发了从浅海到深海沉积环境底栖生物群落不断增加的异质性链。我们的结果为早期动物多样化的“热带稀树草原”假说提供了定量的支持-埃迪卡拉安的多样化是由当地底栖环境中的斑块驱动的。潜在地引发了从浅海到深海沉积环境底栖生物群落不断增加的异质性链。我们的结果为早期动物多样化的“大草原”假说提供了定量的支持，即埃迪卡拉安的多样化是由当地底栖环境中的斑块驱动的。可能引发从浅海到深海沉积环境底栖生物群落不断增加的异质性链。我们的结果为早期动物多样化的“热带稀树草原”假说提供了定量的支持-埃迪卡拉安的多样化是由当地底栖环境中的斑块驱动的。