Causes and nature of the End-Ediacaran extinction

Determine whether the End-Ediacaran extinction was a standard mass extinction event or a gradual biotic replacement, and identify the specific causal mechanisms responsible for the event to clarify its role in subsequent evolutionary transitions such as the Cambrian explosion.

Background

Within the paper’s broader discussion of mass extinctions and their role in long-term planetary habitability, the End-Ediacaran event is highlighted as a major transition whose drivers are debated. Resolving whether it was a conventional mass extinction or a gradual biotic replacement is central to understanding how large ecological disruptions create opportunities for evolutionary innovation.

The authors use this uncertainty as an example of how significant perturbations can reshape ecosystems and potentially enable complexity increases, linking Earth history to their Tangled Nature Model exploration of perturbation-induced evolutionary outcomes.