Dataset Information

Lethal microbial blooms delayed freshwater ecosystem recovery following the end-Permian extinction.

ABSTRACT: Harmful algal and bacterial blooms linked to deforestation, soil loss and global warming are increasingly frequent in lakes and rivers. We demonstrate that climate changes and deforestation can drive recurrent microbial blooms, inhibiting the recovery of freshwater ecosystems for hundreds of millennia. From the stratigraphic successions of the Sydney Basin, Australia, our fossil, sedimentary and geochemical data reveal bloom events following forest ecosystem collapse during the most severe mass extinction in Earth's history, the end-Permian event (EPE; c. 252.2 Ma). Microbial communities proliferated in lowland fresh and brackish waterbodies, with algal concentrations typical of modern blooms. These initiated before any trace of post-extinction recovery vegetation but recurred episodically for >100 kyrs. During the following 3 Myrs, algae and bacteria thrived within short-lived, poorly-oxygenated, and likely toxic lakes and rivers. Comparisons to global deep-time records indicate that microbial blooms are persistent freshwater ecological stressors during warming-driven extinction events.

SUBMITTER: Mays C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8448769 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Lethal microbial blooms delayed freshwater ecosystem recovery following the end-Permian extinction.

Mays Chris C McLoughlin Stephen S Frank Tracy D TD Fielding Christopher R CR Slater Sam M SM Vajda Vivi V

Nature communications 20210917 1

Harmful algal and bacterial blooms linked to deforestation, soil loss and global warming are increasingly frequent in lakes and rivers. We demonstrate that climate changes and deforestation can drive recurrent microbial blooms, inhibiting the recovery of freshwater ecosystems for hundreds of millennia. From the stratigraphic successions of the Sydney Basin, Australia, our fossil, sedimentary and geochemical data reveal bloom events following forest ecosystem collapse during the most severe mass ...[more]

PMID: 34535650

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Project description:The Hiraiso Formation of northeast Japan represents an important and under-explored archive of Early Triassic marine ecosystems. Here, we present a palaeoecological analysis of its benthic faunas in order to explore the temporal and spatial variations of diversity, ecological structure and taxonomic composition. In addition, we utilise redox proxies to make inferences about the redox state of the depositional environments. We then use this data to explore the pace of recovery in the Early Triassic, and the habitable zone hypothesis, where wave aerated marine environments are thought to represent an oxygenated refuge. The age of the Hiraiso Formation is equivocal due to the lack of key biostratigraphical index fossils, but new ammonoid finds in this study support an early Spathian age. The ichnofossils from the Hiraiso Formation show an onshore-offshore trend with high diversity and relatively large faunas in offshore transition settings and a low diversity of small ichnofossils in basinal settings. The body fossils do not, however, record either spatial or temporal changes, because the shell beds represent allochthonous assemblages due to wave reworking. The dominance of small burrow sizes, presence of key taxa including Thalassinoides, Rhizocorallium and Holocrinus, presence of complex trace fossils, and both erect and deep infaunal tiering organisms suggests that the benthic fauna represents an advanced stage of ecological recovery for the Early Triassic, but not full recovery. The ecological state suggests a similar level of ecological complexity to late Griesbachian and Spathian communities elsewhere, with the Spathian marking a globally important stage of recovery following the mass extinction. The onshore-offshore distribution of the benthic faunas supports the habitable zone hypothesis. This gradient is, however, also consistent with onshore-offshore ecological gradients known to be controlled by oxygen gradients in modern tropical and subtropical settings. This suggests that the habitable zone is not an oxygenated refuge that is only restricted to anoxic events. The lack of observed full recovery is likely a consequence of a persistent oxygen-limitation (dysoxic conditions), hot Early Triassic temperatures and the lack of a steep temperature/water-depth gradient within the habitable zone.

Dataset Information

Lethal microbial blooms delayed freshwater ecosystem recovery following the end-Permian extinction.

Publications

Lethal microbial blooms delayed freshwater ecosystem recovery following the end-Permian extinction.

Similar Datasets

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