Adaptations introduced through the progressive development of the various phyla through geologic time are either directly or indirectly the result of their competition with each other. Evolutionary transformations of the archetype, or fundamental structure, including its systems and organs, from which a natural group of animals or plants are assumed to have evolved, is the product of long and directed selection that can span millions of years. Aromorphosis (one of the main trends in biological evolution characterized by increased organization without narrow specialization) has favored the groups with the most successful archetypes (original pattern or model for later related individuals and groups, e.g., bilaterally symmetrical groups and the vertebrates). Throughout the Phanerozoic, dominant groups suppress those less successfully developed groups by closing their pathways to progressive development.
The evolutionary history of the biosphere is characterized by aromorphosis: biological evolution by a general increase in the degree of organization without developing high degrees of specialization [1]. Four major stages of the evolutionary transformation of life (mega-aromorphoses) can be established in the recorded succession of the Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran)-Phanerozoic aromorphoses reflecting changes of the dominant groups. They are defined by the appearance of archetypes ensuring the possibilities of a prolonged and diverse rise of the level of their organization leading to significant increase in the activity of living organisms and their emerging independence from the environment. A successive series of developmental stages exploiting of the aquatic environment of the Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran)-Phanerozoic biosphere can be established based on their dominant groups: the biospheres of protozoans, proto-metazoans, protobilaterals, fishes and amphibians.
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