How dramatic daily swings in oxygen shaped early animal life – new study

By Emma Hammarlund, Associate Professor, Geobiology, Lund University

Imagine a world where the oxygen you need changes dramatically between day and night. Your world shifts from being rich in oxygen (oxic) in the day, so you have energy to hunt for food, to suffocatingly oxygen-free (anoxic) at night, which slows you down.

Now, picture early animals trying to survive in such an extreme environment. This was the reality for early animal life in oceans and seas about half a billion years ago. This was also the time when animal diversity boomed, in what is known as the “Cambrian…

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