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The Role of Biology in the Fossilization of Embryos and Other Soft-Bodied Organisms: Microbial Biofilms and Lagerstätten

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2017

Rudolf A. Raff  and
Elizabeth C. Raff
Rudolf A. Raff
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Indiana University, 150 Myers Hall, 915 E. Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47405 USA
Elizabeth C. Raff
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
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Abstract

Soft-tissue fossils are among the most striking and informative remains of extinct organisms. Although relatively rare, they are diverse, ranging from single microbial cells to nuclei and chromosomes; algae; metazoan embryos and larvae; flowers; complete, small, soft-bodied metazoans, metazoan tissues; integumentary structures such as melanosomes; skin texture, vertebrate feathers and hair, insect wings with color patterns, and sometimes even the entire bodies of large animals. The susceptibility of newly dead soft tissues to physical destruction, consumption, and microbial decay makes their preservation unlikely under most taphonomic conditions. In addition, their vulnerability to rapid autolysis, bioturbation, and destructive physical processes requires that rapid biological events must occur as the critical first steps of fossilization. An understanding of the processes by which biological remains enter the fossil record is important in inferring what non-microbial and microbial processes were operative in Lagerstätten. Paleontologists have recognized that microbial biofilms often accompany soft-tissue fossils, and have suggested that bacteria play an active role in soft tissue fossilization, but that role must be determined experimentally with living bacteria and dead tissue.

Marine embryos and marine bacteria are used to investigate the processes that mediate early steps in soft-tissue preservation because they offer simple systems for laboratory investigation of the roles of autolysis-blocking environments, microbial interactions, biofilm formation, and authigenic mineralization in taphonomy. Understanding microbially mediated preservation of embryos may supply new insights into a more general biology of fossilization.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Paleontological Society Papers , Volume 20: Reading and Writing of the Fossil Record: Preservational Pathways to Exceptional Fossilization , October 2014 , pp. 83 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by The Paleontological Society 

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