Theory on how animals evolved challenged: Some need almost no oxygen

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 18, 2014

Evolution, Intelligent Design, News}

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The origin of complex life is one of science’s greatest mysteries. How could the first small primitive cells evolve into the diversity of advanced life forms that exists on Earth today? The explanation in all textbooks is: Oxygen. Complex life evolved because the atmospheric levels of oxygen began to rise app. 630 — 635 million years ago.

However new studies of a common sea sponge from Kerteminde Fjord in Denmark shows that this explanation needs to be reconsidered. The sponge studies show that animals can live and grow even with very limited oxygen supplies.

In fact animals can live and grow when the atmosphere contains only 0.5 per cent of the oxygen levels in today’s atmosphere.

Essentially, the appearance of complex animals was assumed to be caused by the rise in oxygen levels; it may have only coincided with it.

Sea sponges, a type of animal that dates back to that era, grew in the lab with only .5% of current oxygen levels. Could the contemporaneous comb jellies do so?

So what took animals so long?, the researchers wonder:

“Perhaps the ancient Earth lacked animals because complex, many-celled bodies are simply hard to evolve,” says Daniel Mills.

S’okay. Don’t feel bad. Our pile of rusty tin cans didn’t self-organize into a Porsche over the winter either. Must have left something out.

See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (origin of life)

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Comments

I think the fact that sponges can live in low oxygen environments has been known about for a while and is thus not a 'new' discovery. In fact, sponges with photosynthesizing endosymbionts are shown to produce up to three times more oxygen than they consume, as well as more organic matter than they consume (Wikipedia).
Sponge Excerpt: While most of the approximately 5,000–10,000 known species feed on bacteria and other food particles in the water, some host photosynthesizing micro-organisms as endosymbionts and these alliances often produce more food and oxygen than they consume. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge#Overview
Halichondria panicea (breadcrumb sponge), the sponge they studied, is one of the species of sponges that host photosynthesizing micro-organisms that produce more oxygen than they consume:
Algae - Sea sponges Excerpt: Green algae live close to the surface of some sponges, for example, (Halichondria panicea). The alga is thus protected from predators; the sponge is provided with oxygen and sugars which can account for 50 to 80% of sponge growth in some species.[33] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae#Sea_sponges
Also note, sponges were recently shown to have highly specific and stable microbiomes (which is not what evolution predicts) :
Different sponge species (of the same genus) have highly specific, stable microbiomes - January 21, 2014 Excerpt: The sea sponge is about as simple as an animal can get, but its associated bacterial community—its microbiome —is known to approach the complexity of the diverse microbiome in the human gut. Now, scientists,, have shown that different species of Hexadella sponges each have a highly specific and stable microbiome, not only in terms of the most abundant members of the associated microbial community, but the rare members as well. "When we looked at what microbial community occurred in a species of sponge, we always found the same community, no matter where geographically and at which depth the sponge [lived]," http://phys.org/news/2014-01-sponge-species-highly-specific-stable.html
As well, like Jellyfish, Sponges also preceded the Cambrian explosion and are also found to have essential purpose for preparing, and maintaining, the ecosystem for the Cambrian Explosion of life that was to follow:
Sponges Determine Coral Reef's Nutrient Cycle - 2005 Excerpt: Sponges, which have worldwide distribution in the oceans, filter water. They take up planktonic particles such as bacteria and excrete inorganic nutrients. In turn, these nutrients can facilitate the growth of marine plants and other organisms. Sponges filter water at a phenomenal rate: if the seawater were to remain stationary, the sponges would have completely pumped it away within five minutes,,,, these organisms play a key role in the marine nutrient cycle due to their incredible capacity to convert enormous quantities of organic plankton into inorganic material (nutrients). http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050917085649.htm Barrel and Chimney Sponges Filtering Water - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7E1rq7zHLc
Of note to Jellyfish:
Marine animals cause a stir - July 2009 Excerpt: Kakani Katija and John Dabiri used field measurements of jellyfish swimming in a remote island lake, combined with a new theoretical model, to demonstrate that the contribution of living organisms to ocean mixing via this mechanism is substantial — of the same order of magnitude as winds and tides. (Winds and tides, due to their prevention of stagnation, are known to be essential for life on earth.) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7255/edsumm/e090730-08.html Picture of Jellyfish exhibiting bioluminescence: http://www.holisticprimarycare.net/images/stories/topics_healthy_aging/Aequorea-2.jpg
bornagain77_{February 19, 2014
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bornagain77- Thank you for your response. Let me explain a little better. Yes the comparisons are humbling. However evolutionists just look at it and say that mother nature + father time + replication + some yet undiscovered mechanism, can produce similar designs. Human designs don't replicate and to them that is the magic. To them you put those 4 together and you can get us. And you easily get IC. However asking them how to test that premise and you get equivoications, lies and knots. Yes we have the analogies. But to me that is a sign of design only after necessity and chance have been eliminated.Joe_{February 18, 2014
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Joe in regards to:
Comparing biological systems to modern sophisticated technologies is one great method in showing how illogical and fallacious darwinian thinking is .
you state:
Not really. It is just one way of comparing designs.
Actually Joe, (and I don't disagree with very many of your gruff but to the point comments), I disagree with you. I, for one, find the comparisons very 'humbling'. For instance:
Information Storage in DNA by Wyss Institute - video https://vimeo.com/47615970 Quote from preceding video: "The theoretical (information) density of DNA is you could store the total world information, which is 1.8 zetabytes, at least in 2011, in about 4 grams of DNA." Sriram Kosuri PhD. - Wyss Institute Storing information in DNA - Test-tube data - Jan 26th 2013 Excerpt: Dr Goldman’s new scheme is significant in several ways. He and his team have managed to set a record (739.3 kilobytes) for the amount of unique information encoded. But it has been designed to do far more than that. It should, think the researchers, be easily capable of swallowing the roughly 3 zettabytes (a zettabyte is one billion trillion or 10²¹ bytes) of digital data thought presently to exist in the world and still have room for plenty more. http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21570671-archives-could-last-thousands-years-when-stored-dna-instead-magnetic DNA: The Ultimate Hard Drive - Science Magazine, August-16-2012 Excerpt: "When it comes to storing information, hard drives don't hold a candle to DNA. Our genetic code packs billions of gigabytes into a single gram. A mere milligram of the molecule could encode the complete text of every book in the Library of Congress and have plenty of room to spare." http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/written-in-dna-code.html
bornagain77_{February 18, 2014
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Comparing biological systems to modern sophisticated technologies is one great method in showing how illogical and fallacious darwinian thinking is .
Not really. It is just one way of comparing designs. Watching darwinian thinkers equivocate, lie and tie themselves in knots when asked what blind watchmaker evolution predicts, is one great method in showing how illogical and fallacious darwinian thinking is. Asking for testable hypotheses wrt blind watchmaker evolution is yet another.Joe_{February 18, 2014
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MuhammedJN (#1) Good point. Agree. Thanks.Dionisio_{February 18, 2014
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"The origin of complex life is one of science’s greatest mysteries. How could the first small primitive cells evolve into the diversity of advanced life forms that exists on Earth today?" "The origin of complex life is one of science’s greatest mysteries." Does anyone disagree with the above statement? "...the first small primitive cells..." how did they appear to begin with?Dionisio_{February 18, 2014
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"...complex, many-celled bodies are simply hard to evolve,” Doesn't the above statement kinda agree with what the available evidences tell us? Does the term 'evolve' imply both micro and macro evo? Perhaps in the case of 'micro' should the word 'simply' be replaced by the word 'very'? In the case of 'macro' could the word 'simply' be replaced by the word 'extremely'?Dionisio_{February 18, 2014
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Comparing biological systems to modern sophisticated technologies is one great method in showing how illogical and fallacious darwinian thinking is .MuhammedJN_{February 18, 2014
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