The heyday of paleontology in China

Abstract

Life is the most exquisite and splendid natural outcome on our planet. Life has arisen as an evolutionary experiment of the continually and erratically changing earth system that has persisted for the 4.5 billion years since the formation of this planet. The enormous biodiversity we see today represents a small fraction of the life that has ever existedonearth.As the ‘luckiest’ andmost intelligent species of all beings, we humans, with our unique and consciousminds, have never stopped inquiring where andwhen we came from. Our curious eyes look into deep time to understand the history of life. By unearthing and examining fossils, which are traces and petrified remains left behind by prehistoric organisms, paleontology deciphers the biological messages of past organisms written in rocks of different ages and interprets the direct testimony of the changing earth system in the grand dimensions of time and space. Paleontology is the discipline that bridges biology and geology. Fossils were known early in human history, and their meaning was interpreted in various ways by western wisdom and by Chinese naturalists for over 2000 years. Paleontology as a scientific discipline, however, took its shape in the 18th century in Europe and grew quickly during the 19th century. After Charles Darwin published the On the Origin of Species in 1859, paleontology as a school of natural sciences refocused on understanding the evolutionary path of life. Along with developments in geology, biology, and modern technology in the 19th and 20th centuries, the traditional practice of paleontology using morphology, taxonomy, and biochronology evolved into a form that is equipped with multidisciplinary approaches and is technically and methodologically sophisticated. New concepts, theories, andmethods that developed alongwith the appearance and progress of plate tectonics, radiometric dating, stable isotopic studies, and molecular biology, are now blended into the bloodof traditional paleontology. Searching for themechanisms behind the diversification of life, mass extinctions, and the paleoenvironmental background, paleontology has been brought to a new stage in which organisms and their surroundings have become a single multifaceted research subject commonly tackled by joint international teamwork. In such an enriched intellectual atmosphere, on the ground laid by generations of scientists, and chargedwith the energy of a promising economy, paleontology in China has blossomed into a strong basic research enterprise during the last two decades. We have been fortunate to have witnessed and been involved in this unprecedented development. We use this special topic of National Science Review as an opportunity to bring together a collection of essays that briefly highlights some of the most remarkable paleontological work accomplished during the last two decades in China, with the hope that this will encourage greater endeavors in future research. China contains rich and unique fossil resources, such as the Precambrian Weng’an Biota, the early Cambrian Chengjiang Biota, and the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, to name but a few. Numerous important fossils, someofwhich are considered to be ‘missing links’ in the chain of organismal evolution, have been discovered in the strata of various geologic time intervals. Research on these fossils has significantly advanced our knowledge of the history of life as a whole.The presentations included in the special topic of this issue encompass a spectrum of subjects: from the evolution of the earliest multicellular organisms to how birds conquered the sky, from the coevolution of parasites and hosts to the origin of flowering plants, from insights into genomes and fossils to the early evolution ofmammals, and from an overview of the Jehol Biota to the largest scale mass extinction on earth, in which death resulted in a new flourishing of life. The focus in most of these articles is on critical transitions in organisms and the earth system over geological time. Because paleontological studies in China are so diverse and publications have poured out at such a rapid pace in recent years, the articles included in this special topic are understandably far from being comprehensive. Discoveries are forever, and our efforts to search for the history of life are endless. What has been achieved in paleontology in China is undoubtedly superb, but it is only the opening statement of an influential speech; much remains to be said in the decades to come.The great potential for research opportunities needs to be cultivated and numerous scientific problems remain to be solved. Looking into the history of life, we see a bright future for the study of paleontology in China and the rest of the world. Finally, we thank all the contributors, reviewers, and editorial staff for their time and dedication that made this special topic possible.