Researchers at Montana State University have shed light on how ancient microorganisms adapted from a low-oxygen prehistoric environment to the oxygen-rich world we know today. The study, published in January, compared heat-loving organisms in two Yellowstone thermal features with varying levels of oxygen and sulfide. The findings offer insights into the evolution of life during the Great Oxidation Event, a pivotal period when Earth's atmosphere transitioned to its current oxygen composition.
, Montana State University scientists in College of Agriculture highlight fresh knowledge of how ancient microorganisms adapted from a low-oxygen prehistoric environment to the one that exists today. The work builds on more than two decades of scientific research in Yellowstone National Park by MSU professor Bill Inskeep.
Three types of thermophilic microbes -- organisms that thrive in high-temperature environments -- were found in both springs, whose temperatures hover around 190 degrees Fahrenheit. The paper states that microbes' lifestyles in their respective environments can shed light on how life evolved prior to and through the Great Oxidation Event, the period roughly 2.
While visually similar, the streamers in Conch and Octopus springs hosted very different collections of microbes. Although three species of microbes were common to both springs, the higher-oxygen Octopus Spring had much greater diversity. That offers insight into how they evolved to thrive in a higher-oxygen world, the scientists said.
MSU's placement in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem also makes it ideally placed to conduct this type of research, Inskeep said. "It may seem counterintuitive to understand complex life by studying something that's simple, but that's really how it has to start," he said."You have to think back to understand where we are today."Newly discovered biomarker signatures point to a whole range of previously unknown organisms that dominated complex life on Earth about a billion years ago. They differed from complex eukaryotic life ...
MICROORGANISMS EVOLUTION GREAT OXIDATION EVENT YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK THERMOPHILES
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