Today, oxygen makes up about 21% of our atmosphereBut it wasn’t always so plentyful. Around 2.7 billion years ago, Cyanobacteria – Aquatic Bacteria That Generate Energy Through Photosynthesis -Evolved and Began Releasing Oxygen into the Oceens. This oxygen gradually accumed in the atmosphere in a process called the Great Oxidation Event (Goe), which took place between 2.4 and 2.1 billion years ago. New Research, however, sugges that Aerobic (Oxygen-Dependent) Bacteria may have emerged long before the goe.
An International Team of Researchers has reconstructed the evolutionary tree of one of Earth’s earliest life forms, revealing that Bacteria may have adapted to the presence of oxygen longed before Our atmosphere. Their work, Detailed in a study Published Today in the Journal Science, Challenges the Previous Assumption that Most Life Prior to the Goe Was Anaerobic, that is, Organisms that do’T needed oxygen to survive.
The researchers used a multidisciplinary approach to Reconstruct an Evolutionary Tree For Bacteria and Trace when they adapted to oxygen. This included analyzing geological records, fossil evidence, and over 1,000 diverse bacterial genomes; applying phylognetic reconciliation (Comparing the history of two closely intertwined life forms); And Computer Modeling. According to their evolutionary tree, the last common ancestor of modern bacteria likely existed somefime between 4.4 and 3.9 billion years ago.
“This combined approach of using genomic data, fossils, and earth’s geochemical history brings new class to evolutionary times, especially for Microbial Groups THOT DOSSIL GOROPSIL GROPSIL Gergely szöllősi, a co-author on the study and an evolutionary biologist from the okinawa institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Said in a university statement,
Their results sugges that some aerobic bacteria emerged before the goe, Around 3.22 to 3.25 billion years ago. It’s likely that these bacterial lineages were the ancestors of cyanobacteria, meaning they evilved the ability to metabolize small amaments of oxygen before Developing Photosynthetisis. In fact, the research sugges that oxygen adaptation may have played a crucial role in the evolution of cyanobacteria’s photos Goe.
The team’s approach “Works well for study the spores of aerobic metabolisms and might also be a useful approach for exploring how other traits emerged and interacated with the planets Across Geological Time, “Said Tom Williams, A Computational Evolutionary Biologist from the University of Bristol and also a Co-Outhor on the Study.
The study is also a reminder of the fact that the atmosphere we enjoy was shaped by billions of years of microbial activity.