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Why the fossil record is lopsided
Fossilization favors hard, mineralized body parts such as shells, bones and teeth. Muscles, organs and skin usually decay before they can be preserved, so most of what reaches us from deep time is skeletal. That bias alone explains a large share of why the record looks sparse for many soft-bodied groups, but it does not explain why the pattern changes over time. The new study focuses on that temporal change.
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The Ediacaran exception
The late Ediacaran Period is the notable exception. Soft-bodied macroorganisms from this interval were commonly preserved in fine detail across varied depositional settings, meaning different kinds of sediments and environments rather than one unusual rock type. The study’s abstract describes thousands of such specimens dated to about 579 to 539 million years ago. Soft-tissue preservation of this kind becomes much less common in later rocks, and that drop is the pattern the paper sets out to explain.
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Collagenases are microbial enzymes that break down collagen, the fibrous protein that gives animal tissue much of its structure. Microbes that can digest collagen can therefore dismantle the material that would otherwise persist in a carcass. The lead author, Philip Vixseboxse, explains the logic in Cambridge’s announcement: “You need an enzyme to break down a biopolymer, or else it will sit around for ages until something comes along that can actually eat it.”
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How the proposed mechanism would work
The argument is about timing rather than about whether soft tissue can be preserved at all. As described in the paper’s abstract and Cambridge’s summary, the sequence runs as follows:
- Early collagenases were restricted. The enzymes were associated with obligate anaerobic microbes, organisms that cannot tolerate oxygen.
- Oxygenated seafloors slowed decay. In oxygenated Ediacaran settings, collagen-bearing remains could keep their collagen until oxygen was used up in the surrounding sediment, which gave a longer window for fossilization.
- The genes spread. Collagenase genes later proliferated through lateral gene transfer, the movement of genetic material between microbial lineages, reaching more groups over time.
- Degradation moved within the sediment. The locus of collagen breakdown shifted within the sediment’s redox profile, the layered zone of oxygen and chemical conditions.
- Fossilization had to be faster. Once collagen could be degraded more widely, preservation required faster burial or mineralization to outpace decay. In Vixseboxse’s words: “Now that collagen could be degraded, you needed ever-faster fossilisation processes to outpace decay, which is likely why we start to see a big drop in the abundance and quality of the fossil record, in terms of the preservation of soft tissue.”
The authors place the spread of these genes roughly alongside the diversification of early animals, and the shift in degradation coincides with the decline in exceptional marine soft-tissue preservation.
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What the study examined
The Cambridge-led team traced collagenase genes through 700 bacterial genomes and compared their histories with a time-dated tree of life. That comparison is the core of the evidence: it lets the authors ask when the enzymes appeared and when they spread, and check whether those dates line up with the change in the fossil record. Cambridge’s account of the 700-genome analysis is the source for that figure.
The paper is Philip Vixseboxse, Edmund R. R. Moody, Philip C. J. Donoghue, Sean McMahon and Alex G. S. C. Liu, “Temporal heterogeneity in the animal fossil record driven by proliferation of microbial collagenases,” Current Biology (2026), DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2026.09.045. The University of Cambridge record lists it as accepted and in press on 15 September 2026, and Cambridge’s announcement followed on 8 October 2026. Co-author Professor Alex Liu, of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, summarized the broader implication this way: “These results suggest there may be an overarching biological mechanism that has shaped the fossil record of soft tissues across Earth’s history.”
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What the evidence does not establish
- It does not prove a sole cause. The study links the spread of collagenases with a decline in exceptional soft-tissue preservation. It does not show that collagenases alone account for every gap or every fossilization outcome.
- Soft tissue is still preserved later. Soft tissues can be preserved in younger rocks under exceptional conditions, including rapid burial. The decline is a change in frequency and quality, not an absolute end of soft-tissue fossils.
- Extinction should not be inferred. Soft-bodied organisms did not disappear simply because they stopped appearing as fossils. The paper concerns preservation, not whether those animals existed.
- Methods details are not yet public in the sources available. Gene-tree calibration choices, uncertainty ranges and robustness tests were not visible in the abstract or the announcement, so readers should treat the timing claims as the authors’ reported results rather than independently checked figures.
How it compares with other explanations
Earlier models of the soft-tissue pattern have commonly invoked mineralogical or geochemical conditions, or microbial influences of other kinds. Cambridge’s account notes that no single alternative explains the pattern everywhere. The table below compares the explanations on the three points that matter most for judging a hypothesis of this kind.
| Explanation | Proposed mechanism | Timing relative to the Ediacaran-to-later decline | Scope stated in the sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Collagenase proliferation (this study) | Enzymes that degrade collagen spread through microbial groups, shortening the window for soft-tissue survival | Gene spread reported as roughly coincident with early animal diversification and with the decline | Linked to the decline in exceptional marine soft-tissue preservation; not stated to explain all gaps |
| Ocean or geochemical conditions | Chemistry of the water and sediment shaping whether tissue survives | Not stated in the cited institutional summary | Named as an alternative; no single explanation is said to work everywhere |
| Tissue composition | Differences in what animal tissues are made of affecting preservation potential | Not stated in the cited institutional summary | Named as an alternative; no single explanation is said to work everywhere |
| Microbial mats | Mat-forming microbial communities affecting how carcasses are buried or preserved | Not stated in the cited institutional summary | Named as an alternative; no single explanation is said to work everywhere |
The explanations are not mutually exclusive on the evidence provided. A proposed biological contributor sits alongside, rather than replacing, the chemical and physical conditions that also shape preservation.
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How to read the claim
The strongest part of the argument is the timing: enzymes that can degrade collagen appear early in restricted anaerobic microbes, spread later, and track a change in soft-tissue preservation. The weakest part, for now, is that the link is correlational across a deep time record, and the full methods are not yet visible in the abstract or announcement. A reader should therefore see this as a testable hypothesis that connects microbial evolution to the fossil record, not as a closed case.
The lead author’s own framing points to the same balance. Ancient biology may have left a mark on what survives, but the paper does not replace other explanations of preservation; it adds a biological variable that other work can now evaluate.
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