Washington, Sept. 13 (ANI): Researchers have estimated the rates of evolution during the 'Cambrian explosion' for the first time.
The Cambrian explosion was the period when most modern animal groups appeared between 540 and 520 million years ago.
The findings resolve 'Darwin's dilemma': the sudden appearance of a plethora of modern animal groups in the fossil record during the early Cambrian period.
Lead author Associate Professor Michael Lee of the University of Adelaide's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the South Australian Museum, said that the abrupt appearance of dozens of animal groups during this time is arguably the most important evolutionary event after the origin of life.
He said that these seemingly impossibly fast rates of evolution implied by this Cambrian explosion have long been exploited by opponents of evolution and Darwin had himself famously considered that this was at odds with the normal evolutionary processes.
He said that their study help them estimate that the rates of both morphological and genetic evolution during the Cambrian explosion were five times faster than today - quite rapid, but perfectly consistent with Darwin's theory of evolution.
The team, including researchers from the Natural History Museum in London, quantified the anatomical and genetic differences between living animals, and established a timeframe over which those differences accumulated with the help of the fossil record and intricate mathematical models.
Their modelling showed that moderately accelerated evolution was sufficient to explain the seemingly sudden appearance of many groups of advanced animals in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion.
The findings have been published online in the journal Current Biology. (ANI)
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