what are microbial and fossil mats?
they are huge layers of microbes and fossils found in Antarctica and Australia, sometimes it is hard to tell if these are actual biological remnants or if they are simply plants or weird rock formations
what are the various geological types of evidence of life?
what are stromatolites?
layers of phototrophic microbial communities grew and died, and their form was filled in by calcium carbonate or silica, ie ancient bacteria got filled in by CaCO4
what are stromatolites?
stromatolites
what are the advantages? what are the disadvantages?
advantages - fossil stromatolites appear in the oldest rock of the Archean eon, their distinctive shapes resemble those of modern living stromatolites
disadvantages - some layered formations attributed to stromatolites have been shown to be formed by abiotic processes
what are microfossils?
microfossils
what are the advantages? what are the disadvantages?
advantages - microfossils are visible and measurable under a microscope, offering direct evidence of cellular form
disadvantages - microscopic rock formations require subjective interpretation, some formations may result from abiotic processes, most prone to mistakes
what are isotope ratios?
isotope ratios
what are the advantages? what are the disadvantages?
advantages - highly reproducible physical measurement, they are generated by key biological reactions which can calibrate the time lines of phylogenetic trees, this is more measurable and less subjective
disadvantages - cannot prove absolutely that no abiotic process could generate a given isotope ratio, these ratios tell us nothing about the shape of early cells or how they evolved
what are biosignatures?
biosignatures
what are the advantages? what are the disadvantages?
advantages - biosigs such as hopanoids are complex molecules t specific to bacteria
disadvantages - a biosig though to be specific to one kind of organism may be discovered in others, in the oldest rocks organic biosigs are eliminated by metamorphic processes
what are oxidation states?
oxidation state
what are some advantages? what are some disadvantages?
advantages - oxidized metals offer evidence of microbial processes even in highly deformed rocks
disadvantages - it is hard to rule out abiotic causes of oxidation, even if oxidation was biogenic, it does not reveal what kind of metabolism took place
why is it ideal to have more than one type of evidence present at a given site suspected to contain ancient microbial life?
there should always be at least two if not more types of evidence present when determining if a site as geological evidence for life, this is because all types of evidence have flaws and drawbacks, there are many different things which could lead to abiotic factors coming into play so the more evidence we have the more sure we can be that there was actually life in that site
what are diatoms?
some kind of beautiful algae things
compare and contrast historical and modern microbes?
these guys tend to have some fair similarity, today modern microbes may be a little more structured and adapted for our atmospheric conditions
what is the proposed timeline for the origin and evolution of life on earth?
the planet earth formed during the Hadean eon (about 4.5 Gyr ago). the environment was largely reducing until cyanobacteria pumped O2 into the atmosphere. when O2 levels reached sufficient levels (about 0.6Gyr ago) multicellular animals and plants evolved, we had many photoautotrophs for a while before sufficient O2 and then things diversified
what do we know about early metabolism?
how do we measure evolutionary time using specific genes?
we can measure evolution of genes and species by examining the mutations in sequences over acquired over time, today we may sequence parts of genes or entire genomes to examine mutations, we look at what bases change and where in the sequence they are
- we start w a root sequence and develop tips based on the smallest number of mutations
what gene do we typically use to distinguish bacteria and examine evolution over time?
SSU (small subunit of the ribosome) = rrn gene
16S in bact, 16SA in archaea, 18S in euks
this gene is highly conserved so small mutations can tell us a lot and be very distinguishable
what is the molecular clock?
as genetic molecules reproduce, the number of mutations accumulated at random is proportional to the number of generations and thus the time since divergence
how has NGS changed how we identify and examine bacteria?
it allows for much more rapid sequencing and many more sequences can be looked at at the same time
how can we define relationships between bacteria based on changes to the DNA?
identity -> exact base pair matches
homology -> similar amino acids
- we can create DNA sequence alignments which allow for various organisms to be classified in relation to each other
- so get the sequences, align them, develop a phylogenetic tree
how do we ensure we have generated a good phylogenetic tree?
one MUST have statistical analysis performed on their phylogenetic trees, the most common method for this is bootstrapping