These organisms have survived virtually unchanged through 5 mass extinctions and half a billion years.
The oldest green algae preserved in three dimensions may hint that plants originated earlier than previously believed.
Green algae are members of the plant kingdom that emerged at least a billion years ago, but the new finding, which shows that a diversity of modern-looking algae species existed earlier than thought, may push back the origin of the plant kingdom perhaps another 100 million years, the researchers reported Sept. 21 in the journal BMC Biology. The ancient algae is surprisingly complex, and almost identical to a modern genus of seaweed called Codium.
A modern analogue The specimens come from a rich deposit of fossils known as the Gaojiashan biota, a number of which are preserved in three dimensions rather than being squished flat. The study's co-authors from Northwest University in Xi'an, China, asked Aria to take a look at the five algae specimens, which didn't match anything else seen from the late Ediacaran elsewhere in the world.
It's generally thought that species from before the Cambrian Explosion were relatively simple, Aria said. But the new discovery of such a complex green algae from over 541 million years ago suggests more diversity in the Ediacaran than expected. It may be time to reevaluate some of the two-dimensional fossils from this era to see if they, too, could be Codium, Aria said.
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