Nitrogen isotope evidence for anoxic deep marine environments from the Mesoarchean Mosquito Creek Formation, Australia

Koehler, Matthew C.; Buick, Roger; Barley, Mark

doi:10.1016/j.precamres.2018.11.008

Cited by 14 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…These results also suggest that local sources of nitrate may have been exploited by denitrifying microbes, while denitrifiers using nitrite or downstream products would not have proliferated until much later in Earth history, until the mid-Proterozoic, well after the Great Oxidation Event. This finding is consistent with previous geochemical studies that documented isotopic evidence of denitrification in the Neoarchean (Garvin et al, 2009b;Godfrey & Falkowski, 2009;Koehler et al, 2019) and Paleoproterozoic (Zerkle et al, 2017a;Kipp et al, 2018;Luo et al, 2018). Our results suggest that genes involved in nitrate reduction arose by approximately 2.8 Ga, indicating that nitrate was present and used as a metabolic substrate at that time.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…is an ancient process, arising by approximately 3.1-2.7 Ga (Table 4). Our results are consistent with previous work from geochemical analyses suggesting that nitrogen fixation must have arisen early in order to support an expanding biosphere (Stüeken et al, 2016a;Koehler et al, 2019;Ossa Ossa et al, 2019). In contrast, a previous analysis based on the evolutionary rate of nitrogenase genes suggested that functional Mo-nitrogenase arose relatively late (approx.…”

Section: Nitrogen Fixationsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Although our results suggest that nitrogen fixation was an important process on the early Earth, microbial metabolisms making use of more oxidized forms of nitrogen, particularly through the process of denitrification downstream from nitrite, do not appear to have arisen and spread across the tree of life until much later. Some early steps in the nitrogen cycle, such as nitrate reduction to nitrite via nasA, narG or napA, appear to have arisen relatively early (in the late Archean or early Proterozoic), consistent with geochemical record of denitrification at that time (Godfrey & Falkowski, 2009;Koehler et al, 2019). However, we did not identify many horizontal gene transfer events early in the evolutionary history of these genes, and their proliferation across the tree of life only began in earnest much later, approximately 1.5 Ga. Our results therefore suggest that nitrate availability was restricted in space and/or time.…”

Section: Nitrogen Cycling Prior To the Oxygenation Of The Oceans And mentioning

confidence: 64%

“…Denitrification is a highly energy-yielding metabolism (Schoepp-Cothenet et al, 2013), and therefore even a small source flux of nitrate to the early ocean would probably have been exploited. However, we stress that denitrification left its geochemical mark in only a few Archean basins (Garvin et al, 2009b;Godfrey & Falkowski, 2009;Koehler et al, 2019), while other localities show no geochemical evidence of nitrate reduction (Ossa Ossa et al, 2019) . This observation may argue against a significant contribution of lightning-derived nitrogen oxides, which we would expect to have been more uniformly distributed.…”

Section: Nitrogen Cycling Prior To the Oxygenation Of The Oceans And mentioning

confidence: 75%

“…The question of how these metabolisms unfolded over Earth's history has previously been addressed with both geochemical and phylogenetics-based approaches. Geochemical approaches, relying on the reconstruction of metabolisms based on the rock record, have suggested that biological nitrogen fixation emerged early (Stüeken et al, 2016a;Koehler et al, 2019;Ossa Ossa et al, 2019) and that the nitrogen cycle expanded considerably during the Neoarchean (2.8-2.5 Ga) and Paleoproterozoic (2.5-1.8 Ga) (Garvin et al, 2009a;Godfrey & Falkowski, 2009;Zerkle et al, 2017a;Kipp et al, 2018;Koehler et al, 2018;Luo et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Radiation of nitrogen-metabolizing enzymes across the tree of life tracks environmental transitions in Earth history

Parsons

Stüeken

Rosen

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Nitrogen is an essential element to life and exerts a strong control on global biological productivity. The rise and spread of nitrogen-utilizing microbial metabolisms profoundly shaped the biosphere on the early Earth. Here we reconciled gene and species trees to identify birth and horizontal gene transfer events for key nitrogen-cycling genes, dated with a time-calibrated tree of life, in order to examine the timing of the proliferation of these metabolisms across the tree of life. Our results provide new insights into the evolution of the early nitrogen cycle that expand on geochemical reconstructions. We observed widespread horizontal gene transfer of molybdenum-based nitrogenase back to the early Archean, minor horizontal transfer of genes for nitrate reduction in the Archean, and an increase in the proliferation of genes metabolizing nitrite around the time of the Mesoproterozoic (~1.5 Ga). The latter coincides with recent geochemical evidence for a mid-Proterozoic rise in oxygen levels. Our findings provide important constraints for understanding the evolution of the nitrogen cycle over time and provide insights into the bioavailability of various nitrogen sources in the early Earth with possible implications for the emergence of eukaryotic life.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Nitrogen Fixationsupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Nitrogen Cycling Prior To the Oxygenation Of The Oceans And mentioning

confidence: 64%

Section: Nitrogen Cycling Prior To the Oxygenation Of The Oceans And mentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Radiation of nitrogen-metabolizing enzymes across the tree of life tracks environmental transitions in Earth history

Parsons

Stüeken

Rosen

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Mission to Planet Earth: The First Two Billion Years

et al. 2020

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Solar radiation and geological processes over the first few million years of Earth’s history, followed soon thereafter by the origin of life, steered our planet towards an evolutionary trajectory of long-lived habitability that ultimately enabled the emergence of complex life. We review the most important conditions and feedbacks over the first 2 billion years of this trajectory, which perhaps represent the best analogue for other habitable worlds in the galaxy. Crucial aspects included: (1) the redox state and volatile content of Earth’s building blocks, which determined the longevity of the magma ocean and its ability to degas H2O and other greenhouse gases, in particular CO2, allowing the condensation of a water ocean; (2) the chemical properties of the resulting degassed mantle, including oxygen fugacity, which would have not only affected its physical properties and thus its ability to recycle volatiles and nutrients via plate tectonics, but also contributed to the timescale of atmospheric oxygenation; (3) the emergence of life, in particular the origin of autotrophy, biological N2 fixation, and oxygenic photosynthesis, which accelerated sluggish abiotic processes of transferring some volatiles back into the lithosphere; (4) strong stellar UV radiation on the early Earth, which may have eroded significant amounts of atmospheric volatiles, depending on atmospheric CO2/N2 ratios and thus impacted the redox state of the mantle as well as the timing of life’s origin; and (5) evidence of strong photochemical effects on Earth’s sulfur cycle, preserved in the form of mass-independent sulfur isotope fractionation, and potentially linked to fractionation in organic carbon isotopes. The early Earth presents itself as an exoplanet analogue that can be explored through the existing rock record, allowing us to identify atmospheric signatures diagnostic of biological metabolisms that may be detectable on other inhabited planets with next-generation telescopes. We conclude that investigating the development of habitable conditions on terrestrial planets, an inherently complex problem, requires multi-disciplinary collaboration and creative solutions.

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Precambrian evolution of the nitrogen cycle

Johnson,

Stüeken

2025

Treatise on Geochemistry

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Nitrogen isotope evidence for anoxic deep marine environments from the Mesoarchean Mosquito Creek Formation, Australia

Cited by 14 publications

References 44 publications

Radiation of nitrogen-metabolizing enzymes across the tree of life tracks environmental transitions in Earth history

Radiation of nitrogen-metabolizing enzymes across the tree of life tracks environmental transitions in Earth history

Mission to Planet Earth: The First Two Billion Years

Precambrian evolution of the nitrogen cycle

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