Video Notes: Shape of Life IV Annelids

For a long period of time after animals first appeared on earth, life initially seemed peaceful.
Then, suddenly, things changed. About 500 million years ago, during a period of time called the
Cambrian, a major increase in animal diversity occurred. Many new and strange kinds of
animals appeared in a geological instant. Palaeontologists are studying this explosion of
animal diversity, called the Cambrian Explosion. The Burgess Shale is a rock formation found
high in the Canadian Rockies, and contains the best and most numerous fossils of the Cambrian
Explosion. The Burgess Shale was first discovered in 1909, and contains tens of thousands of
fossils. The evidence of the Cambrian Explosion is not confined to the Burgess Shale, and can
be found in other locations over the entire world.

A major difficulty faced by palaeontologists who want to reconstruct these ancient organisms is
that many of them are often not preserved in their entirety, and need to be reconstructed piece by
piece. This often takes many years and many false starts, and is largely a matter of trial and
error. The organism Anomalocaris illustrates this difficulty.

When it was first described in 1887, the fossil of Anomalocaris appeared to be a rather small
animal with a shrimp-like body and small legs. A different round-shaped fossil that was
discovered appeared to be a small jellyfish. More than 100 years later, it was finally discovered
that the jellyfish was actually the jaws of Anomalocaris, and the shrimp-like body was
actually a claw. Anomalocaris turned out to be the largest (3-4 feet long), most dominant
predator of its time that we know of. This shows how wrong paleontologists can be about an
animal, especially if nothing comparable lives today.

The evolution of animals like Anomalocaris represents a profound turning point for life on earth.
Just prior to the Cambrian Explosion, the oceans were populated with the ancient relatives of
todays sponges, cnidarians, and flatworm-like animals. Life proceeded at a relatively slow
pace. Then, in a very short period of time (in geological terms), many different, complex
animals evolved the Cambrian explosion (this occurred about 500 million years ago). Many of
these new animals were fast, active predators (Anomalocaris appears to be the top predator of
this period). Other organisms evolved various defenses against predation, including protective
bristles and spines.

What conditions were responsible for the Cambrian Explosion, and what was the impact of these
creatures? Although biologists and artists have managed to reconstruct, with difficulty, many of
these animals from fossils, its even harder to reconstruct the conditions and causes for the
Cambrian Explosion that produced them. There are three competing hypotheses:

1) Genetic revolution By the time of the Cambrian, a certain level of genetic information and
morphological complexity in animals had evolved. Recall some of the key steps; sponges
invented different cell types and the ability of cells to collaborate and interact, but had no true
tissues or bodily movement. Cnidarians invented tissues, mouths, guts, nerves, muscles, and the
ability to move. Flatworm-like animals with heads established the basic genetic blueprint of a
hunter, with bilateral symmetry and a head, containing a brain located near sensory organs.
According to this hypothesis, the morphological and genetic stage was now finally set for the
explosion of diversity. Prior to this, the requisite genetic information and morphological
complexity didnt exist.

2) Ecological change perhaps a change in the earths climate created conditions suitable for the
Cambrian Explosion. For example, an increase in available oxygen could have supported larger
bodies, and stimulated their evolution.

3) Biological arms race The evolution of increasingly diverse organisms, especially predators,
led to a biological arms race among organisms, and stimulated the evolution of even more
diverse forms. The basic idea here is that organisms faced increasing competition to eat or be
eaten, and this exerted a strong selective force for new adaptations in prey and predators. Every
adaptation in a predator leading to an increased ability to catch prey would exert a strong
selective force for new adaptations in the prey to counteract it, and vice versa. Certainly in
todays world, a biological arms race is the norm for organisms.

In fact, there probably wasnt a single cause for the Cambrian Explosion, perhaps all of these
contributed to it. In any case, almost every animal alive today can be traced back to a body plan
that arose during this remarkable period. Indeed, some animals today bear an uncanny
resemblance to forms preserved in the Burgess Shale. For example, the velvet worm that
inhabits the leaf litter in damp Australian forests appears to be practically indistinguishable from
a Cambrian Explosion fossil, as are modern ctenophores. Additionally, although nothing like an
elephant existed then, the basic blueprint for an elephant body was being established. This basic
body plan is one that includes segmented muscles and a correspondingly segmented
endoskeleton, a large brain, and a spinal chord (dorsal hollow nerve tube). These basic elements
are seen in the fossil organism Pikaia, and have been passed on to all living vertebrates.

Although there are and have probably been millions of species of animals present at any given
time since the Cambrian Explosion, there are only about 35 basic body plans, and almost all of
these originated in the Cambrian. Its as if animal life struck upon a few successful body plans
fairly early on, that could be modified into all of the millions of species of great diversity and
complexity. New behaviors arose as animals became more complex.

One of these remarkable groups that arose in the Cambrian Explosion, the annelid worms, helped
shape the destiny of the planet itself. There are currently more than 15,000 species in this
phylum, with a great diversity of habitats, lifestyles, and adaptations. This group has literally
colonized almost the entire world. Almost wherever there is a chance for survival, annelid
worms have taken up residence. For example, the scale worm lives on the underside of a sea star
(among the tube feet), and eats morsels from the sea stars meals. Other worms live in more
hostile environments, such as near deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Other examples of annelid diversity include:

- tentaculate suspension feeders, some with eyes on ends of tentacles for detecting danger

- tentaculate deposit feeders (e.g., terebellids, or spaghetti worms)

- leeches (Class Hirudinea), ectoparasites with a sucker mouth and three sawlike jaws.
These organisms inject saliva that has an anesthetic and an anticoagulant. They
can ingest several times their own body weight in blood, and can go several
months between feedings.

Many worms inhabit mud flats and play important ecological roles (predators and/or prey), and
can also have a big impact on the environment itself. For example, one annelid worm is a tube
dweller that stabilizes the mud itself, similar to the way plant roots stabilize soil. They can occur
in densities of many thousands per square meter on mud flats. They build their tubes by
secreting glue from a gland behind their head, which is used to secure bits of algae, shell
fragments, and mud together. These animals retreat into the shelter of their tubes during low
tide.

Some other deposit feeding annelids spend their lives tunneling and burrowing through the
sediment. The evolution of these forms, which may have been stimulated by fierce competition
on the surface of the seafloor, marked an important advance into a new realm, and may have
once helped save the planet Earth from an age of ice. The annelid body plan - with its flexible,
segmented body, powerful muscles, complete gut, nervous and circulatory systems - was well
suited for this new lifestyle. The collective impact of burrowing worms is enormous, and makes
life possible.

One example of this may be the fact that the earth has not experienced a global ice age
(snowball earth) since the last one about a billion or more years ago. What role could worms
possibly play in preventing another global ice age? As carbon-rich waste and bodies accumulate
on the sea floor, they are trapped within sediment. Worms moving through the sediment and
feeding on it convert this carbon into CO
2
gas, which ultimately diffuses out of the sediment and
the oceans into the atmosphere. This CO
2
traps heat energy and provides a thermal blanket (the
greenhouse effect), and helps prevent the occurrence of another global ice age (other ice ages
have occurred, but they have been limited to high latitudes). More stable, hospitable conditions
for life are the result.

Terrestrial worms also have an impact. Earthworms ingest soil as they burrow, the burrows help
aerate the soil, and the defecated waste fertilizes it. Earthworms can live up to 7 years, some
species can grow up to 20 feet long. Collectively, they turn over immense amounts of soil.
Earthworms help decompose leaf litter, accelerating the release of nutrients. In summary,
annelids help sustain life on earth.

Annelids and many other groups of animals began with the Cambrian Explosion. Although
many fossil forms seem alien at first glance, they were the recognizable ancestors of animals that
dominate our world today. Most of the basic body designs of todays animals arose then.