Functional shifts in microbial mats recapitulate early Earth metabolic transitions.

ABSTRACT: Phototrophic microbial mats dominated terrestrial ecosystems for billions of years, largely causing, through cyanobacterial oxygenic photosynthesis, but also undergoing, the Great Oxidation Event approximately 2.5 billion years ago. Taking a space-for-time approach based on the universality of core metabolic pathways expressed at ecosystem level, we studied gene content and co-occurrence networks in high-diversity metagenomes from spatially close microbial mats along a steep redox gradient. The observed functional shifts suggest that anoxygenic photosynthesis was present but not predominant under early Precambrian conditions, being accompanied by other autotrophic processes. Our data also suggest that, in contrast to general assumptions, anoxygenic photosynthesis largely expanded in parall

SUBMITTER: Gutierrez-Preciado A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6217971 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature