Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates
Name
geosciences-12-00185.pdf
Size
2.41 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
3c37fa3388caac0c1e484a89e482368a
Author(s)
Cutts, Elise M.
Baldes, Matthew J.
Skoog, Emilie J.
Hall, James
Gong, Jian
Moore, Kelsey R.
Bosak, Tanja
Date Issued
April 25, 2022
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Citation
Geosciences 12 (5): 185 (2022)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Here we review the application of molecular biological approaches to mineral precipitation in modern marine microbialites. The review focuses on the nearly two decades of nucleotide sequencing studies of the microbialites of Shark Bay, Australia; and The Bahamas. Molecular methods have successfully characterized the overall community composition of mats, pinpointed microbes involved in key metabolisms, and revealed patterns in the distributions of microbial groups and functional genes. Molecular tools have become widely accessible, and we can now aim to establish firmer links between microbes and mineralization. Two promising future directions include “zooming in” to assess the roles of specific organisms, microbial groups, and surfaces in carbonate biomineralization and “zooming out” to consider broader spans of space and time. A middle ground between the two can include model systems that contain representatives of important microbial groups, processes, and metabolisms in mats and simplify hypothesis testing. These directions will benefit from expanding reference datasets of marine microbes and enzymes and enrichments of representative microbes from mats. Such applications of molecular tools should improve our ability to interpret ancient and modern microbialites and increase the utility of these rocks as long-term recorders of microbial processes and environmental chemistry.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences12050185
