中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所张元动团队发现约4.8亿年前磷质层孔海绵形成珊瑚礁。这一研究成果于2025年3月31日发表在《美国科学院院刊》杂志上。

层孔海绵是中古生代重要的造礁生物，但它们的早期历史和与礁生态系统的整合仍然知之甚少。研究组报告了雷祖尼拉夫层孔海绵，该新种发现于华南上特马豆克阶至下弗洛阶地层（约4.8亿年前）。雷祖尼拉夫层孔海绵形成了复杂的礁结构，在骨架构建和结合其他成分方面发挥着至关重要的作用，包括钙微生物、石质海绵、有柄棘皮动物和卡拉席姆。

这一发现推翻了大约20年前形成的层孔虫和珊瑚礁的化石记录，推进了珊瑚礁进化中奥陶纪生物多样性事件的开始。雷祖尼拉夫层孔海绵不同寻常地使用氟磷灰石构建了它的骨骼，这是海绵中以前未知的特征。这确立了海绵动物门是已知的第一个利用了所有三种主要生物矿物的后生动物门：二氧化硅、碳酸钙和磷酸钙。

在这种早期的叠层多孔体中存在磷酸盐骨骼，这扩展了研究组对早期动物生物矿化能力的理解，并表明早期海绵中可能存在用于多种生物矿化策略的遗传工具包。已知最早的造礁层孔虫及其磷酸盐骨骼组成的独特组合，为人们提供了对地球历史关键时期生物矿化进化动力学和后生动物主导的礁生态系统崛起的见解。

附：英文原文

Title: Phosphatic stromatoporoid sponges formed reefs ~480 Mya

Author: Jeon, Juwan, Simonet Roda, Mar, Chen, Zhong-Yang, Luo, Cui, Kershaw, Stephen, Kim, Daeyeong, Ma, Jun-Ye, Lee, Jeong-Hyun, Zhang, Yuan-Dong

Issue&Volume: 2025-3-31

Abstract: Stromatoporoid sponges were important reef-builders during the middle Paleozoic, yet their early history and integration into reef ecosystems remain poorly understood. Here, we report Lophiostroma leizunia Jeon sp. nov., the oldest known stromatoporoid from upper Tremadocian to lower Floian (~480 My-old) strata of South China. L. leizunia formed complex reef structures, playing crucial roles in framework construction and binding other components, including calcimicrobes, lithistid sponges, stalked echinoderms, and Calathium. This discovery pushes back the fossil record of stromatoporoids and the reefs that they formed by approximately 20 My, advancing the onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event in reef evolution. L. leizunia unusually constructed its skeleton using fluorapatite—a feature previously unknown in sponges. This establishes Porifera as the first metazoan phylum known to have utilized all three principal biominerals: silica, calcium carbonate, and calcium phosphate. The presence of phosphatic skeletons in this early stromatoporoid expands our understanding of biomineralization capabilities in early animals and suggests that the genetic toolkit for diverse biomineralization strategies may have been present in early sponges. The unique combination of the earliest known reef-building stromatoporoids and their phosphatic skeletal composition provides insights into the evolutionary dynamics of biomineralization and the rise of metazoan-dominated reef ecosystems during a critical period of Earth’s history.

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2426105122

Source: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2426105122