Thomas J. Algeo

Microbial influences on paleoenvironmental changes during the Permian-Triassic boundary crisis

The biosphere interacts and co-evolves with natural environments. Much is known about the biosphere’s response to ancient environmental perturbations, but less about the biosphere’s influences on environmental change through earth history. Here, we discuss the roles of microbes in environmental changes during the critical Permian-Triassic (P-Tr) transition and present a perspective on future geomicrobiological investigations. Lipid biomarkers, stable isotopic compositions of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur, and mineralogical investigations have shown that a series of microbial functional groups might have flourished during the P-Tr transition, including those capable of sulfate reduction, anaerobic H2S oxidation, methanogenesis, aerobic CH4 oxidation, denitrification, and nitrogen fixation. These microbes may have served to both enhance and degrade the habitability of the Earth-surface environment during this crisis. The integrated microbial roles have enabled the Earth’s exosphere to be a self-regulating system.