An Increase in Animal Diversity was Facilitated by Ecologically-Driven Brain Complexity Throughout the Cambrian

The Cambrian Explosion is often seen as a singular event requiring an explanation. In fact, it is better represented as a cascade of linked events, each with numerous causes. The iconic middle Cambrian fauna, represented by sites such as the Burgess Shale, is a culmination of several phases of increases in taxonomic diversity and morphological complexity. I focus on an often-overlooked increase in complexity that took place in a limited number of phyla in parallel after the main “explosion”. This increase in morphological complexity and disparity was facilitated by an increase in the complexity of the central nervous system, which in itself was a selective response to the ecological complexity of the biosphere, which had been increasing from the late Ediacaran. Genetic regulatory components that contributed to an increasingly differentiated and regionalized central nervous system were developmentally co-opted to increase the differentiation and complexity of additional organ systems. This process took place convergently in arthropods, mollusks, and annelids at different times throughout the Cambrian and, later in the Ordovician, also in vertebrates.