Constraining the oxygen requirements for modern microbial eukaryote diversity.

ABSTRACT: Eukaryotes originated prior to the establishment of modern marine oxygen (O₂) levels. According to the body fossil and lipid biomarker records, modern (crown) microbial eukaryote lineages began diversifying in the ocean no later than ~800 Ma. While it has long been predicted that increasing atmospheric O₂ levels facilitated the early diversification of microbial eukaryotes, the O₂ levels needed to permit this diversification remain unconstrained. Using time-resolved geochemical parameter and gene sequence information from a model marine oxygen minimum zone spanning a range of dissolved O₂ levels and redox states, we show that microbial eukaryote taxonomic richness and phylogenetic diversity remain the same until O₂ declines to around 2

SUBMITTER: Mills DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10786294 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature