The creation of life is a beautiful, sacred act; a great power no one should wield irresponsibly. That said, according to new research published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, complex life on Earth may have evolved because one of our earliest ancestors took an enormous—and vitally important—poop in the ocean.
Scientists have long known that animal waste is essential to healthy oceans. Whale urine helps circulate nutrients, while whale poop is so valuable to marine ecosystems that researchers have even developed synthetic whale poop to restore struggling ecosystems. So maybe it shouldn’t be shocking that, 540 million years ago, when Earth was mostly ocean, and its inhabitants looked like Alien Facehugger concept art, the most important s—t ever taken helped kick evolution into high gear.
This all appropriately happened during the Cambrian explosion, the roughly 25 million-year evolutionary growth spurt that produced the ancestors of nearly every major animal group on Earth. A lot of the early creatures to develop during this time grew in complexity compared to their past counterparts, including the development of sophisticated digestive systems that started pumping out tons of nutrient-rich turds into the sea, which served the same purpose as the poo-laden fertilizers farmers use to grow crops.
Complex Life on Earth May Owe a Lot to Ancient Ocean Poop
Those poops likely recycled carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and several other nutrients throughout the water, thus contributing to the exact feedback loop needed to create life: the poop creates the perfect environment for life, and then that life creates more poop that feeds more life and so on and so on until that poop eventually turns into you reading this article.
The authors of the study were claiming that evolution is solely the cause of poop. Poop is simply one of several factors that happen to arise at the same time, creating the perfect environment for life to spring, factors that included rising oxygen levels and a changing climate. Poop did the dirty work and provided the vital nutrients to a bubbling pot of water that was just begging for some ingredients to cook.
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