T56 New Advances in Geobiology

Sunday, 22 September 2024
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
208A

DISTRIBUTION OF GLOEOBACTERALES AND VAMPIROVIBRIONIA AND THE POTENTIAL HABITATS INHABITED BY THE EARLIEST CYANOBACTERIIA

Paper number: T56-5
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:25 PM – 2:40 PM

Authors

Abstract

The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis in the Cyanobacteria was one of the most transformative events in Earth history, eventually leading to the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere. However, it is difficult to constrain when photosynthesis evolved in part because we do not understand the ecology of the earliest phototrophs including the environments in which they lived. Here, we use a cutting-edge bioinformatics tool to survey nearly 500,000 metagenomes for relatives of the Gloeobacteria and the Vampirovibronia, the taxa that likely bookended the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis to identify the modern environments in which these organisms live. Ancestral state reconstruction suggests that the common ancestors of these organisms lived in freshwater environments. This restricted distribution may have increased the lag between the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis and the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 56, No. 5

doi: 10.1130/abs/2024AM-404981

© Copyright 2024 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.