The Ediacaran Biota represents Earth's first complex ecosystems with macroscopic animal organisms. By comparing paleo-diversity and ecology across global sites with consistent paleo-environmental reconstruction methods, my work establishes robust sedimentological and paleo-environmental contexts for Ediacaran fossil localities in China, Australia, Namibia, and Newfoundland (work in press, Sedimentology). Existing paleo-environmental descriptions for Ediacaran localities are often brief and treat sedimentological analyses of fossil-bearing strata as secondary to the fossil specimens. Knowledge of the depositional environments of these fossils allows for more accurate inferences about extinction patterns and ecology of early complex life. For example, my research shows that macrofossils at a key Ediacaran site were predominantly transported from shoreface settings to low-energy offshore shelf settings by sediment gravity flows. Many published inferences about the organisms' living, feeding, and interacting behaviors – i.e., knowledge of early animal evolution – have been erroneously based on transported specimens. My work emphasizes the need to carefully establish the sedimentological context of ancient fossiliferous strata to  inform life habits, evolutionary change, and mass extinction events.