Identify the first inhabitant of the Earth – Information Plano

  A dating of fossils 440 million years is not only the oldest example of a fossilized fungus, but the oldest fossil of any body of land found so far. The agency, known as Tortotubus, played a key role in establishing the foundation for more complex plants, and subsequent animals, on land and start the process of putrefaction and soil formation, which is basic to all life.

 

  The oldest fossil

  This pioneering early shows similar to that found in some fungi modern structure, which will probably allow storage and transport of nutrients through the decomposition process. Although it can not be said to be the first organism that lived on earth, it is the oldest of a terrestrial organism fossil found so far. The results are published in the ‘Botanical Journal’ of the Linnean Society.

 

  “During the period when there was this body, life was confined almost exclusively to oceans: nothing more complex than plants moss and lichen had evolved on land,” said the article’s author, Martin Smith, the University of Cambridge. “But before there could be plants or trees, or animals that depend on them, the processes of putrefaction and soil formation were needed to establish bloom.”

 

  Working with a series of microfossils tiny Sweden and Scotland, each shorter than a human hair, Smith tried to reconstruct the method of growth of two different types of fossils were first identified in the 1980s

 

  It was thought that these fossils represent parts of two different organisms, but by identifying other fossils with similar shapes, Smith was able to show that the fossils were part of a single organism actually represented in different stages of growth. With the reconstruction of how the body grew, he was able to show that the fossils are of mycelium, the filaments in the form of root fungi used to extract nutrients from the soil.

 

  It is difficult to determine exactly when life migrated first of the seas to land, since the useful features in the fossil record that could help identify the oldest terrestrial colonizers are rare, but generally agreed that the transition it began in the early Paleozoic era, between 500 and 450 million years.

 

  But before complex life forms could live on earth, there had to be there to support nutrients. Fungi played a key role in the transition to the earth, as when starting the decomposition process, a layer of fertile soil appeared over time, allowing plants established with root systems, which in turn could support animal life.

 

  Smith found that Tortotubus had a cord-like, similar to some modern fungi, in which the main filament sends out primary and secondary branches sticking on the main filament structure, and eventually wrap . This cord-like structure is often seen in terrestrial organisms, allowing them to spread and colonize surfaces.

 

  “This fossil provides an indication that the fungi may have colonized the land before the first animals to leave the oceans,” Smith said.

“It fills an important gap in the evolution of life on land.”