Evolution of multicellularity coincided with increased diversification of cyanobacteria and the Great Oxidation Event.

ABSTRACT: Cyanobacteria are among the most diverse prokaryotic phyla, with morphotypes ranging from unicellular to multicellular filamentous forms, including those able to terminally (i.e., irreversibly) differentiate in form and function. It has been suggested that cyanobacteria raised oxygen levels in the atmosphere around 2.45-2.32 billion y ago during the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), hence dramatically changing life on the planet. However, little is known about the temporal evolution of cyanobacterial lineages, and possible interplay between the origin of multicellularity, diversification of cyanobacteria, and the rise of atmospheric oxygen. We estimated divergence times of extant cyanobacterial lineages under Bayesian relaxed clocks for a dataset of 16S rRNA sequences representing the entire kn

SUBMITTER: Schirrmeister BE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3562814 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature