Longlong Shan,^1,2,3,* Thomas H.P. Harveyhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-2717-7004,^4,** Kui Yanhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4205-2437,^1,***,**** Jun Lihttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-1489-8101,^1,***** Yuandong Zhanghttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1347-6270,^1,2,****** Thomas Servaishttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4089-7874<sup>3,*******

1</sup>State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, People's Republic of China
²College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China
³CNRS, Université de Lille, UMR 8198 – Evo-Eco-Paleo, Lille, France
⁴School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

^*Longlong Shan is a doctoral candidate at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS). He graduated from Henan University in 2016, and received his Master's degree from NIGPAS in 2019. He is currently at the CNRS, Université Lille, UMR 8198 – Evo-Eco-Paleo, France, for a joint training programme from 2021 to 2022, and mainly works on the stratigraphical, palaeoecological and palaeogeographical significance of late Cambrian to Early Ordovician palynomorphs from North China.
^**Thomas H. P. Harvey is a lecturer in geoscience at the University of Leicester, UK. His research is focused on the Proterozoic–Phanerozoic transition, including the origins and early evolution of animals and their environments. He is particularly interested in reconstructing animal anatomy, phylogeny and ecology using exceptionally preserved macrofossils and SCFs.
^***CONTACT Kui Yan kuiyan@nigpas.ac.cn State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 39, Beijing East Road, Nanjing 210008, People's Republic of China
^****Kui Yan is an associate researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, China. He mainly works on the stratigraphical and palaeogeographical significance of the Early Palaeozoic microphytoplankton of China. Specifically, he specialises in the study of interactions between palaeoenvironment and microphytoplankton evolution during the Great Ordovician Radiation.
^*****Jun Li is a research professor at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, China. He visited the University of Sheffield, UK, during 1985, and the University of Lille 1, France, on numerous occasions between 2000 and 2017. He also visited Central Michigan University, USA, for three months in 2004. His research is focused on Ordovician and Silurian acritarchs.
^******Yuandong Zhang is a researcher and the Deputy Director of the State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy (Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences), and the Secretary-General of the Palaeontological Society of China. He received his PhD on Ordovician graptolites from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in 1993, and has been working on Lower Palaeozoic stratigraphy, graptolites and related organisms since the 1990s. Over the past two decades, he led several major research projects, sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on the Ordovician radiations, marine gas shale in South China and the palaeogeographic reconstruction of South China at some specific times within the Palaeozoic. He was among the co-leaders of the IGCP653 project, which was on the ‘Onset of the GOBE’.
^*******Thomas Servais is a Research Director at the French Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS). His research is focused on the biostratigraphy, palaeobiogeography and palaeoecology of Palaeozoic acritarchs. His current research is mostly dedicated to a better understanding of the Ordovician Plankton Revolution. He is currently Chairman of the Ordovician Subcommission of Stratigraphy.