Even more crustal minerals were formed by plate tectonics with the help of lubricating ocean water, atmospheric oxygen from the successful development
of photosynthetic microbes, and land - based lichens (of algae and fungi) and mosses which were followed by deep - rooted plants that hastened the erosion and weathering of surface rocks with the help of biochemical action and the creation of soils as well as new clay minerals.
Huang's research addresses fundamental questions about the rules bacteria live by — for instance, what determines their shape and how different wavelengths of light affect the movement
of photosynthetic microbes (SN: 10/14/17, p. 17).
Not exact matches
He and colleagues have determined what gives cholera bacteria their curved shape and whether it matters (a polymer protein, and it does matter; the curve makes it easier for cholera to cause disease), how different wavelengths
of light affect movement
of photosynthetic bacteria (red and green wavelengths encourage movement; blue light stops the
microbes in their tracks), how bacteria coordinate cell division machinery and how
photosynthetic bacteria's growth changes in light and dark.
Photosynthetic microbes filled the atmosphere with oxygen billions
of years ago but they renovated the planet without awareness.
Photosynthetic microbes also store plenty
of fat, which forms the basis for fuel.
Primitive
photosynthetic microbes were around and may have played a role in the generation
of methane and minor usage
of carbon dioxide.
On the other hand, many anaerobic
microbes including methanogens are easily poisoned by oxygen, and the recent discovery
of banded sediments with rusted iron on Akilia Island in West Greenland suggests that oxygen - producing,
photosynthetic microbes (e.g., cyanobacteria) living on the surface
of wet areas to gather sunlight may have developed by the end
of this geologic period (3.85 billion years ago) despite continuing bombardment from space.
Many
of these
microbes persist today; for example, blue - green (cyanobacteria) or bright green,
photosynthetic bacteria use light from the Sun and chlorophyll to convert carbon dioxide and water into «free» molecular oxygen and carbon, made into essential organic substances such as carbohydrates.
Cyanosite — NASA image
of Chroococcidiopsis Dividing Chroococcus sp., a type
of cyanobacteria,
photosynthetic microbes that also produce oxygen.
Given at least nine meters (roughly 30 feet)
of water on the planet,
photosynthetic microbes (including mats
of algae, cyanobacteria, and other
photosynthetic bacteria) and plant - like protoctists (such as floating seaweed or kelp forests attached to the seafloor) could be protected from «planet - scalding» ultraviolet flares produced by young red dwarf stars, according to Victoria Meadows
of Caltech, principal investigator at the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory.
As proposed by Andrew Goldsworthy in 1987, cyanobacteria and later chloroplast - related protists and plants developed after
microbes that used a purple pigment bacteriorhodopsin that absorbs green light dominated the oceans, and so the new
photosynthetic cyanobacteria were forced to use the left - over light with chlorophyll that reflects green light, which was too complex to change even after purple - reflecting
photosynthetic lifeforms were no longer dominant (Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist, September 10, 2010 — more on the evolution
of photosynthetic life and plants on Earth).
Earth's much thicker layer
of low - level ozone, however, has a much larger contribution from the build - up
of molecular oxygen beginning some 2.4 billion years ago from
photosynthetic microbes excreting oxygen as a waste gas, which now along with plant life is constantly replenishing Earth's two - atom as well as three - stom ozone oxygen molecules.
These mats are likely composed
of, among other bacteria, Chloroflexus, a filamentous
photosynthetic microbe (yes, it produces energy from sunlight like plants do!)