Role Of Microbial Mats
Pereira in advances in microbial physiology 2015.
Role of microbial mats. Marais journal nature year 2001 volume 412 pages 324 327. We investigated the role of nine microbial mats collected from three quarry sumps of chromium mining sites in the removal of hexavalent chromium cr vi. Article hoehler2001thero title the role of microbial mats in the production of reduced gases on the early earth author t. In nature a chromium content of 1 911 100 mg kg 1 was.
Microbial mats are complex multi layered laminated systems the architecture of which reflects vertical light and redox gradients and correspondingly structured microbial communities. The role of microbial mats in preservation of soft bodied organisms has been widely discussed gehling 1999. The chemical parameters to be considered for studying microbial mats are the presence of oxygen ph redox potential saline concentration presence of electron donor and acceptor compounds and the diversity of chemical species whereas the important physical parameters to be considered include light temperature and pressure. Microbial mats play an important role in forming geological features known as stromatolites.
These highly striated communities of photoautotrophs and chemoheterotrophs develop in saline lakes marine intertidal zones and hot springs. Bacterial diversity in these mats and community shifts after incubation with cr vi have been investigated using miseq sequencing. 1 profoundly affecting both geochemical and biological evolution. Microbial mats are characterized by intensive internal carbon cycling.
Among the latter the photosynthetic or lithotrophic members are responsible for the primary production. Some cold seeps are the sites of microbial mats which can sometimes cover several hundreds of meters. Oxygen is toxic to organisms that are not adapted to it but greatly increases the metabolic efficiency of oxygen adapted organisms. The advent of oxygenic photosynthesis on earth may have increased global biological productivity by a factor of 100 1 000 ref.