It does contain a modicum of truth, however, in that the largest volume of stromatolitic formations was likely formed by biogenic processes involving
photosynthetic cyanobacteria.
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).
The team presents new isotopic data showing that a burst of oxygen production by
photosynthetic cyanobacteria temporarily increased oxygen concentrations in Earth's atmosphere.
Since the 1950s, biologists have known that
photosynthetic cyanobacteria make microcompartments, called carboxysomes, which house an important photosynthesis enzyme.
«To me this is exciting because you have such abundant
photosynthetic cyanobacteria in the ocean,» said Feng Chen.
The best studied belongs to
photosynthetic cyanobacteria: other microbes, like E. coli, don't carry clocks at all, says Pamela Silver at Harvard.
The nitrogen - eaters belong to two families of
photosynthetic cyanobacteria and a distantly related proteobacteria group, the researchers report in the 9 August issue of Nature.
Endosymbiotic theory posits a later parallel origin of the chloroplasts; a cell ate
a photosynthetic cyanobacterium and failed to digest it.
Not exact matches
But with our planet as their guide, astrobiologists are forced to acknowledge that oxygen may be the least likely thing they will ever see — genetic evidence suggests the complex oxygen - producing
photosynthetic pathway pioneered by
cyanobacteria is an extraordinary evolutionary innovation that only appeared once throughout the entire multi-billion-year history of Earth's biosphere.
«This is probably because
cyanobacteria are naturally
photosynthetic — they're actually responsible for a large fraction of the photosynthesis in the ocean — and so whether the cell is energized or not is a good indication of whether it's day or night,» he says.
A lichen is a collaboration between a fungus and a
photosynthetic partner, which can be either green algae,
cyanobacteria, or both.
To remedy that absence, Golden's lab, along with plant physiologist Takao Kondo and colleagues at Nagoya University in Japan, developed an easy - to - read gauge of changing
photosynthetic activity in colonies of the
cyanobacterium Synechococcus, a blue - green alga whose one - celled organisms divide as often as once every 5 to 6 hours.
Venter and other scientists are experimenting with
photosynthetic microbes such as algae and
cyanobacteria (sometimes referred to as blue - green algae).
«Our lab and others have put a gene from
cyanobacteria into crop plants and found that it boosts the
photosynthetic rate by 30 percent,» he said.
Because they are
photosynthetic and aquatic,
cyanobacteria are often called «blue - green algae».
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.
The researchers, however, did not stop looking until they considered using
cyanobacteria — a
photosynthetic blue - green algae known for its ability to survive in water.
Regardless of when the
cyanobacteria appeared, it is widely accepted that they comprised the predominant form of life on early earth for some two billion years, and were responsible for the creation of earth's atmospheric oxygen, consuming CO2 and releasing O2 by
photosynthetic metabolism.
Objective: To understand the first steps in the evolution of
photosynthetic eukaryotes and the impact plastidial endosymbioses (involving
cyanobacteria or unicellular algae) had on the genomes of these organisms that are critical to the functioning of ecosystems.
However, the Earth harbors a greater diversity of
photosynthetic organisms than vascular plants, and includes algae,
cyanobacteria, and anoxygenic
photosynthetic bacteria, all of which occur in a wide array of colors, due to adaptation and acclimation to different light and chemical environments.