Overview
- Authors Julien Kimmig and Russell Bicknell published a review in Trends in Ecology & Evolution in August 2026 that compiles coprolite findings and advances the 'fecal revolution' hypothesis.
- The review documents coprolites from 36 Cambrian deposits with the oldest clear examples dating to about 539–540 million years ago and shows an increase in size and variety through the period.
- The authors argue that evolving, more complex guts—especially in early arthropods—boosted production of particulate organic matter and spread key nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron through the water column.
- They propose a positive feedback in which larger biomass produced larger fecal fluxes that enhanced nutrient recycling and helped stabilize nutrient conditions needed for complex marine ecosystems to form.
- The paper is a synthesis rather than new fossil discovery, and the authors and reporters note the idea remains a developing, testable framework that requires targeted geochemical, taphonomic, and ecosystem-modeling studies to assess its role alongside oxygenation and other drivers.