Rangeomorphs were probably animals, but they’re so primitive and vaguely fern-like that it’s hard to be sure.

Rangeomorphs 可能是动物，但它们太原始且有点像蕨类植物，因此很难确定。

Ocean chemistry was changing a bunch in the Ediacaran, so this kind of growth flexibility probably helped rangeomorphs survive.

埃迪卡拉纪的海洋化学发生了巨大变化，因此这种生长灵活性可能帮助了类胚生物生存。

This makes a lot of sense, because rangeomorphs might have fed by absorbing nutrients directly from seawater into their branched bodies.

这很有道理，因为 rangeomorphs 可能通过直接从海水中吸收营养进入它们的分支机构来进食。

So if nutrients like oxygen or organic carbon were more available in slightly higher-up water, for example, the simulated rangeomorphs grew taller and thinner.

因此，如果氧气或有机碳等营养物质在稍高的水中更容易获得，例如，模拟的范围形态会长得更高更瘦。

And the researchers think that at least one of these big nutrient shifts might have let organisms that were living side-by-side with rangeomorphs grow bigger than ever before.

研究人员认为，这些营养物质的重大转变中至少有一个可能让与范围形态生物并存的生物变得比以往任何时候都大。