Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates
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...
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| Format: | Article |
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Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142513 |
| _version_ | 1811083740211838976 |
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| author | Cutts, Elise M. Baldes, Matthew J. Skoog, Emilie J. Hall, James Gong, Jian Moore, Kelsey R. Bosak, Tanja |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Cutts, Elise M. Baldes, Matthew J. Skoog, Emilie J. Hall, James Gong, Jian Moore, Kelsey R. Bosak, Tanja |
| author_sort | Cutts, Elise M. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:38:18Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/142513 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:38:18Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1425132023-04-07T20:19:57Z Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates Cutts, Elise M. Baldes, Matthew J. Skoog, Emilie J. Hall, James Gong, Jian Moore, Kelsey R. Bosak, Tanja Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences 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. 2022-05-13T12:16:58Z 2022-05-13T12:16:58Z 2022-04-25 2022-05-12T19:35:47Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142513 Geosciences 12 (5): 185 (2022) PUBLISHER_CC http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/geosciences12050185 Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 application/pdf Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
| spellingShingle | Cutts, Elise M. Baldes, Matthew J. Skoog, Emilie J. Hall, James Gong, Jian Moore, Kelsey R. Bosak, Tanja Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates |
| title | Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates |
| title_full | Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates |
| title_fullStr | Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates |
| title_full_unstemmed | Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates |
| title_short | Using Molecular Tools to Understand Microbial Carbonates |
| title_sort | using molecular tools to understand microbial carbonates |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/142513 |
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