Carbon

Abstract

Summary: All cyanobacteria are actually or potentially photolithotrophic, with the exception of a recently discovered non-auotrophic free-living diazotroph which is presumably a (photo-)organotroph. Photolithotrophy involves CO2 assimilation by Form 1A or Form 1B Rubiscos with low affinity for CO2 and a small discrimination between CO2 and O2 and, at present CO2 levels, invariably involves an inorganic carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM). About half of the cyanobacterial strains tested are facultatively photo-organotrophic, a few of which are also facultative chemo-organotrophs; the rest are obligate photolithotrophs. In the natural environment the best-established cases of photo- or chemo-organotrophy are in symbioses of diazotrophic cyanobacteria with organisms that are already photosynthetic. The quantitative contribution of dissolved organic matter to otherwise photolithotrophically growing cyanobacteria is unclear. Extent cyanobacteria are involved in both biologically mediated calcification (direct role of the organism) and biologically related calcification (indirect role of the organism). The timing of the evolution of cyanobacterial CCM is unclear: the CCM probably evolved in low-CO2 episodes in the late Neoproterozoic or the Carboniferous, with spread to all cyanobacteria in the already established major clades by horizontal gene transfer. Cyanobacteria may be the last surviving photolithotrophs as the sun emits more energy and (by whatever mechanism) there is a decreased greenhouse gas, including CO2, content, of the atmosphere.