Although traditional beliefs hold that the Earth's first mass extinction event was the result of a meteorite or super volcano, recent evidence found by a Vanderbilt University study points to the evolution of early animals as the real cause, according to The Week. According to the results, Earth's first animals, such as vertebrates, mollusks and jellyfish, were responsible for eating all of the Ediacarans, who lived peacefully together up until the mass extinction 60 million years ago, according to The Times of India.
The earliest life forms on Earth were microbes, which essentially ruled the earth for over 3 billon years, according to Phys.org. However, years of evolution eventually lead to the creation of more and more complex organisms, eventually leading to the evolution of animals.
The mass extinction of Ediacarans and explosion of animals lead to the Cambrian explosion, a 25-million-year period where modern animal families came in existence.
"These new species were 'ecological engineers' who changed the environment in ways that made it more and more difficult for the Ediacarans to survive," said Simon Darroch, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University.
"People have been slow to recognize that biological organisms can also drive mass extinction," said Darroch. "This study provides the first quantitative palaeoecological evidence to suggest that evolutionary innovation, ecosystem engineering, and biological interactions may have ultimately caused the first mass extinction of complex life."
