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ANIMAL EVOLUTION

Searching for sponge origins

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 1685–1686 (2018)Cite this article

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Sponges are believed by many researchers to be the earliest living animal group, but there is conflicting evidence for the timing of their origin. A molecular fossil discovery supports the contention that sponges appeared very early, but starkly contradicts the body fossil record.

Living sponges are morphologically simple, and genetic analyses suggest that they (with ctenophores) were among the first modern animals to have evolved1. However, pinpointing their time of origin has proved frustratingly difficult. Recent critical reassessments of earlier claims of ancient sponge fossils2,3 could not confirm a single example from the Precambrian (more than 541 million years). Most of the fossil record consists of bones, shells or other mineral skeletons, but such skeletons were probably absent or very fragile in many early animals4. Fortunately, biomolecules can also become fossilized, and these molecular fossils can survive long geological timescales. Such ‘biomarkers’ can provide information on once-living organisms even when body fossils are absent or poorly preserved5. This is where the lipid signatures of modern sponges become important. Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Zumberge and colleagues report the identification of a new type of sterane lipid (26-methylstigmastane, or 26-mes) that they interpret as a diagnostic sponge marker when found in the ancient marine rock record, because its biological equivalents are found exclusively (so far as we know) in one major group of sponges (demosponges)6. This discovery offers fresh support for an early origin of sponges and, if the sponge interpretation is correct, has direct implications for such critical subjects as the nature of the Cambrian explosion.

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Fig. 1: Sponge evolution as inferred from the molecular versus the body fossil record.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Nanjing, China

    Joseph P. Botting

  2. Department of Natural Sciences, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Cardiff, UK

    Joseph P. Botting

  3. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

    Benjamin J. Nettersheim

  4. MPI Biogeochemistry/MARUM, Paleobiogeochemistry Group, Bremen University, Bremen, Germany

    Benjamin J. Nettersheim

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  1. Joseph P. Botting
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Correspondence to Joseph P. Botting.

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Botting, J.P., Nettersheim, B.J. Searching for sponge origins. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 1685–1686 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0702-4

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