The way that Earth’s first animals reproduced held back life’s diversity for millions of years, until stress and competition led to the development of sexual reproduction, which in turn accelerated the pace of evolution.
The Museum of Zoology's Curator of Non-Insect Invertebrates, Dr Emily Mitchell and her co-author Professor Andrea Manica used a combination of laser scanning, spatial analysis and artificial intelligence to study fossils from Mistaken Point in Newfoundland, one of the world’s richest sources of fossils from the Ediacaran, to help determine why early animal evolution slowed down, and why it might have sped up again.
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