Cambrian Explosion and Construction of the First Animal Consumer-Driven Marine Ecosystem on Earth

Dear Colleagues,

Biological activity is a major triggering factor driving Earth’s organic and inorganic cycles across the biosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere. A key question in Earth’s ecosystem evolution is when and how different animals emerged and flourished and how their appearance impacted the hydrosphere–atmosphere–lithosphere cycles. The Cambrian Explosion of metazoans around the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary interval gave rise to the sudden appearance of essentially all of the readily fossilizable modern animal groups as macro-consumers in the Earth’s oceans. This explosive radiation event for the first time led to the emergence and diversification of animals on Earth and to the establishment of complex trophic webs with animals as consumers originating in the onset of the Phanerozoic oceanic ecosystem.

We are pleased to propose a Special Issue on the occasion of the 120th Anniversaries of Northwest University, Xi'an of China. The Special Issue aims to investigate the at least half-billion-year-old tubular and conical shelled world (sponges, conulariids, chancelloriids, hyoliths, mollusks, tommotiids, and other lophotrochozoans) that are unseen in the present oceans, but arduously recovered by us from the siliciclastic and carbonate rocks of China, Australia, and the Baltic region. In conjunction with body animals preserved in exceptionally preserved biotas (Könversat–Lagerstätten) across China, efforts are underway to understand how the early animals, notably early bilaterians, created the over 500-million-year-old microbial-algae-producer-supported oceanic ecosystems on Earth with no impacts on land plants inhabitable upward. Submissions of reports or descriptions of new fossils only are not on the priority list for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Zhifei Zhang
Prof. Dr. Lars E. Holmer
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biology is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.