DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2jm63xsvg
title: Data from: Elucidating the morphology and ecology of Eoandromeda octobrachiata from the Ediacaran of South Australia

description: Eoandromeda octobrachiata is a poorly understood Ediacaran organism, with
 spiral-octoradial arms, found in South Australia and South China. The
 informal Nilpena member of the Rawnsley Quartzite, Flinders Ranges in
 South Australia preserves more than 200 specimens of Eoandromeda. Here we
 use the novel application of rotational geometric morphometrics together
 with palaeoenvironmental information to provide a better insight into
 their palaeobiology and ecology and to address conflicting hypotheses
 regarding mode of life and taxonomic affinity. We find that Eoandromeda
 likely had a radially symmetrical shape in life, was cone-shaped and had a
 high relief off the microbial mat. Analysis of the symmetric and
 asymmetric shape components revealed they deform strongly in the direction
 of palaeocurrent, therefore are thought to be made of a flexible material.
 Almost all specimens are compressed flat. Specimens that appear to have
 not fully collapsed support the idea that Eoandromeda was likely
 cone-shaped and further suggest that they possibly collapsed spirally. Our
 shape analysis along with observed morphological features support the
 benthic mode of life hypothesis rather than pelagic. Morphological and
 ecological inconsistencies do not fully support the hypothesis of a
 Ctenophora taxonomic affinity.
description: Three-dimensional (3D) surfaces of these specimens were captured
 using the HDI Compact C506 and 3Shape TROIS 4 Intraoral 3D laser scanners
 (accuracies reported to 12µm and c.5µm respectively). Scans were prepared
 using the FlexScan3D and TRIOS Design Studio software (correspondingly)
 and processed (landmarked/measured) in the MeshLab software (Cignoni et
 al. 2008).
description: R and excel required to view and process the files.
description: # Elucidating the morphology and ecology of Eoandromeda octobrachiata from
 the Ediacaran of South Australia Tory L. Botha: Principal investigator,
 University of Adelaide, ORCiD: 0000-0002-2519-9365 Description of files
 and data: coEo: Text file dictating how the landmarks are rotated and
 relabeled SymmetryFunctions: R Function written by Savriama (Frontier in
 Plant Science, 2018) that rotates and relabels the specimens R code: R
 Code for analysis of Eoandromeda Collections_7armlmk: * .tps file
 containing the standardised landmarks for collection specimens that were
 landmarked * Three columns present in the files representing X, Y, Z
 coordinates of the landmarks Eo + Float_7armlmk: * .tps file containing
 the standardised landmarks for LV-Eo Bed + Float specimens that were
 landmarked * Three columns present in the files representing X, Y, Z
 coordinates of the landmarks Parv Bed_7armlmk: * .tps file containing the
 standardised landmarks for WS-Parv Bed specimens that were landmarked *
 Three columns present in the files representing X, Y, Z coordinates of the
 landmarks Sub Bed_7armlmk: * .tps file containing the standardised
 landmarks for WS-Parv Bed specimens that were landmarked * Three columns
 present in the files representing X, Y, Z coordinates of the landmarks
 Arms.csv: raw measurements (in mm) of average arm width, average arm
 length and centroid size per specimen (centroid size was calculated from
 landmarked specimens during the generalised Procrustes analysis (GPA)) |
 For Arms.csv file - <br>Specimens beginning with: | | |
 --------------------------------------------- | --- | | P |
 from the South Australian Museum (SAMA)
 collections | | Eo Bed | from
 LV-Eo Bed | | Parv Bed | from
 WS-Parv Bed | | Sub Bed | from
 WS-Sub Bed | | L | from Lower
 float section associated with LV-Eo Bed | | M |
 from Middle float section associated with LV-Eo
 Bed | | U | from Upper float
 section associated with LV-Eo Bed | 8 of the
 collection’s scans were analysed within the LV-Eo bed + Float dataset as
 this was a float piece found associated with the bed and brought back to
 SAMA previously. * P55445 * P55446 * P55447 * P55449 * P55451 * P55452 *
 P55457 * P55458