Linking microbial ecology to the cycling of neutral and acidic polysaccharides in pustular mats from Shark Bay, Western Australia.

ABSTRACT: Cyanobacteria and other microbes in peritidal microbial mats have produced extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) for more than two billion years. The production and degradation of EPS contributes to the biogeochemical cycling of carbon and carbonate precipitation within modern microbial mats, but key microbes involved in the cycling of EPS remain unidentified. Here, we investigate the cycling of EPS in the peritidal pustular mats of Shark Bay, Western Australia. We characterize the chemical composition of EPS produced by cyanobacterial enrichment cultures under natural and UV-stress conditions and link these findings to the metabolic potential for EPS production and degradation encoded in 84 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from the mat community. We further identify the key microbia

SUBMITTER: Skoog EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12555021 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature