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Importance of Prokaryotes in the Functioning and Evolution of the Present and Past Geosphere and Biosphere

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Prokaryotes and Evolution

Abstract

On a volcanic and anaerobic planet characterized by abundant hydrothermal activity, physicochemical gradients and disequilibria at the local scale would have been fundamental for the emergence of life on Earth. Unfortunately, the early rock record pertaining to this existential process no longer exists, and, while chemists attempt to recreate life in a test tube, two other approaches can provide some information about early life and its metabolic processes. In the first place, phylogenetic, geological, thermodynamic, and microbiological settings suggest that disproportionation of reduced sulfurous compounds might have been essential for microbial evolution by delivering both sulfide and sulfate on Earth’s surface. These processes would have been fueled by serpentinization reactions in hydrothermal systems. Another approach is to study ancient and modern microbialites in order to better understand primitive microbial metabolic traits that occurred more than 3 billion years ago. The combination of all of these approaches to understanding early terrestrial life is of relevance to the emergence of life on other planets and satellites in the solar system, especially, for example, Mars.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Guy Fauque for revising the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aix Marseille Université, Université de Toulon, CNRS, IRD, MIO UM 110, Marseille, France

    Bernard Ollivier & Gregoire Gales

  2. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de Minéralogie, de Physique des Matériaux et de Cosmochimie, Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France

    Nina Zeyen & Karim Benzerara

  3. UM9R 750, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

    Nina Zeyen & Karim Benzerara

  4. CNRS, Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire, UPR 4301, Rue Charles Sadron, Orléans CEDEX, France

    Keyron Hickman-Lewis, Frédéric Gaboyer & Frances Westall

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  1. Bernard Ollivier
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  3. Gregoire Gales
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  7. Frances Westall
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Correspondence to Bernard Ollivier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Unité Mixte de Service, UMS 3470, OSU Pythéas, Aix Marseille Université, Marseille Cedex, France

    Jean-Claude Bertrand

  2. Laboratoire d’Ecologie Microbienne, UMR 5557, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France

    Philippe Normand

  3. Aix Marseille Université, Université de Toulon, CNRS, IRD, MIO UM 110, Marseille, France

    Bernard Ollivier

  4. Laboratoire “Microorganismes: Génome et Environnement” (LMGE), CNRS UMR 6023, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France

    Télesphore Sime-Ngando

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Ollivier, B. et al. (2018). Importance of Prokaryotes in the Functioning and Evolution of the Present and Past Geosphere and Biosphere. In: Bertrand, JC., Normand, P., Ollivier, B., Sime-Ngando, T. (eds) Prokaryotes and Evolution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99784-1_3

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