Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 111, Issue 15, Pages 5462-5467Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1318106111
Keywords
methanogenesis; horizontal gene transfer; microbial evolution; biogeochemical dynamics
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Funding
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration Astrobiology Institute [NNA08CN84A, NNA13AA90A]
- National Science Foundation [OCE-0930866, DEB-0936234, DGE-1122374]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41290260]
- National Basic Research Program of China [2011CB808905]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [0936234] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The end-Permian extinction is associated with a mysterious disruption to Earth's carbon cycle. Here we identify causal mechanisms via three observations. First, we show that geochemical signals indicate superexponential growth of the marine inorganic carbon reservoir, coincident with the extinction and consistent with the expansion of a new microbial metabolic pathway. Second, we show that the efficient acetoclastic pathway in Methanosarcina emerged at a time statistically indistinguishable from the extinction. Finally, we show that nickel concentrations in South China sediments increased sharply at the extinction, probably as a consequence of massive Siberian volcanism, enabling a methanogenic expansion by removal of nickel limitation. Collectively, these results are consistent with the instigation of Earth's greatest mass extinction by a specific microbial innovation.
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