«To me this is exciting because you have such abundant
photosynthetic cyanobacteria in the ocean,» said Feng Chen.
Not exact matches
«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.
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.
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.
The team presents new isotopic data showing that a burst of oxygen production by
photosynthetic cyanobacteria temporarily increased oxygen concentrations
in Earth's atmosphere.
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.
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 researchers, however, did not stop looking until they considered using
cyanobacteria — a
photosynthetic blue - green algae known for its ability to survive
in water.
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.
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.
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.