The ISME Journal (2020) 14:3024–3037 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-020-0734-z ARTICLE Versatile cyanobacteria control the timing and extent of sulfide production in a Proterozoic analog microbial mat 1 2,9 1,10 2 3 Judith M. Klatt ● Gonzalo V. Gomez-Saez ● Steffi Meyer ● Petra Pop Ristova ● Pelin Yilmaz ● 4,5,11 6 7 1,8 2 Michael S. Granitsiotis ● Jennifer L. Macalady ● Gaute Lavik ● Lubos Polerecky ● Solveig I. Bühring Received: 28 February 2020 / Revised: 16 July 2020 / Accepted: 28 July 2020 / Published online: 7 August 2020 © The Author(s) 2020. This article is published with open access Abstract Cyanobacterial mats were hotspots of biogeochemical cycling during the Precambrian. However, mechanisms that controlled O2 release by these ecosystems are poorly understood. In an analog to Proterozoic coastal ecosystems, the Frasassi sulfidic springs mats, we studied the regulation of oxygenic and sulfide-driven anoxygenic photosynthesis (OP and AP) in versatile cyanobacteria, and interactions with sulfur reducing bacteria (SRB). Using microsensors and stable isotope probing we found that dissolved organic carbon (DOC) released by OP fuels sulfide production, likely by a specialized SRB population. Increased sulfide fluxes were only stimulated after the cyanobacteria switched from AP to OP. O2 production 1234567890();,: 1234567890();,: triggered migration of large sulfur-oxidizing bacteria from the surface to underneath the cyanobacterial layer. The resultant sulfide shield tempered AP and allowed OP to occur for a longer duration over a diel cycle. The lack of cyanobacterial DOC supply to SRB during AP therefore maximized O2 export. This mechanism is unique to benthic ecosystems because transitions between metabolisms occur on the same time scale as solute transport to functionally distinct layers, with the rearrangement of the system by migration of microorganisms exaggerating the effect. Overall, cyanobacterial versatility disrupts the synergistic relationship between sulfide production and AP, and thus enhances diel O2 production. Introduction Earth as we know it today. O2 is the most favorable electron acceptor used for respiration by myriads of organisms, and The evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis (OP) by cyano- its accumulation in the atmosphere considerably changed bacteria was one of the major transformative events in the the surface chemistry of the Earth. There are, however, history of life and is responsible for the bounty of life on many open questions concerning the history of O2 on Earth. Particularly the long lag in the rise of atmospheric O2 levels after the first appearance of free oxygen signals in the Supplementary information The online version of this article (https:// geological record still defy holistic mechanistic explanation doi.org/10.1038/s41396-020-0734-z) contains supplementary material, [1]. One of the most mysterious episodes in Earth’s history which is available to authorized users. * Judith M. Klatt 6 Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, PA, [email protected] USA 7 Biogeochemistry Group, Max Planck Institute for Marine 1 Microsensor Group, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany Microbiology, Bremen, Germany 8 Department of Earth Sciences—Geochemistry, Faculty of 2 Hydrothermal Geomicrobiology, MARUM, University of Bremen, Geosciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands Bremen, Germany 9 Present address: Alfred Wegener Institute—Helmholtz Centre for 3 Microbial Physiology Group, Max Planck Institute for Marine Polar and Marine Sciences, Bremerhaven, Germany Microbiology, Bremen, Germany 10 Present address: Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries, Thünen 4 Research Unit Environmental Genomics, Helmholtz Zentrum Institute, Rostock, Germany Munich, Munich, Germany 11 Present address: DOE, Joint Genome Institute, Lawerence 5 Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Patras, Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, USA Agrinio, Greece Versatile cyanobacteria control the timing and extent of sulfide production in a Proterozoic analog. 3025 after the Great Oxidation Event (~2.3–2.6 billion years ago) occurring over only a few mm depth. The lack of stratifi- is often referred to as the “boring billion” during the mid- cation disturbance by advective exchange of sulfur com- end Proterozoic, during which the O2 level remained below pounds, organic carbon, and nutrients, might have favored 0.01–10% of modern levels for about 1 billion years before the establishment of a positive feedback loop. On modern rising markedly in the Neoproterozoic Oxidation Event. Earth, mats often form under extreme conditions, such as Realizing that the Proterozoic global O2 stasis—the high salinities, that provide natural protection from the “dullest time in Earth’s history” [2]—cannot be explained majority of grazing animals. Proterozoic cyanobacterial exclusively based on geochemical mechanisms, biologically mats, however, flourished in a vast proportion of the sunlit nuanced models suggest that global pelagic O2 production shallow seafloor, under low-O2 and high reductant condi- might have been tempered due to competition between OP tions even after the first global rise of atmospheric O2 [3]. and sulfide- or iron-driven anoxygenic photosynthesis (AP) Among these reductants, reduced sulfur compounds might [3–5]. The conceptual model introduced by Johnston et al. have played a central role as electron donors for AP. Phy- [3] specifically assumes euxinic water column conditions logenetic as well as sulfur isotope data [14] suggest that and suggests that organic carbon produced during sulfide- even the earliest microbial mats might have been char- driven AP would be unavailable for aerobic respiration in acterized by intense sulfur cycling despite limited external the uppermost water column and thus would stimulate sulfur input [15–17]. Predominantly ferruginous ocean sulfate reduction in the deeper oceans. This feedback would conditions are nowadays a widely accepted model [17–20] then further increase rates of sulfide-driven AP in disfavor replacing the former model of a global euxinic ocean [21]. of OP. Competition between AP and OP for light and/or This questions the applicability of the Johnston et al.’s nutrients might therefore have set into motion a series of model beyond highly productive coastal environments that biogeochemical cascades that sustained sulfidic oceans and might have represented the local exception and were tempered O2 production. Johnston et al.’s proposal likely euxinic [1]. Thus, the model by Johnston et al. emphasizes that the physiology and ecology of early might rather apply to the microbial ecosystems that flour- microorganisms need to be considered to understand Earth- ished and evolved under sunlit sulfidic conditions: scale effects of microbial activity. cyanobacterial mats. Sulfur-driven AP can be performed by specialized obli- This study aimed to test if the open ocean model of gate anoxygenic phototrophs, as well as by cyanobacteria positive feedbacks between sulfide-driven AP and sulfate [6]. While there is some speculation that early cyanobacteria reduction [3] can be validated in an analog ecosystem to used electron donors in addition to sulfide and water [7], coastal mats of the Proterozoic characterized by cyano- only reduced sulfur compounds have been confirmed as bacterial AP. Such analog mat ecosystem flourishes under alternative electron donors in extant cyanobacteria [6, 8– diverse sulfide to O2 ratios along the flow path of sulfidic 11]. Sulfide:quinone reductase (SQR) is the only enzyme spring water emerging from the Frasassi cave system, Italy involved in cyanobacterial AP that has been identified so [22, 23]. Using an approach that combines microsensor far, and might be the only equipment needed for light- measurements and stable isotope probing (SIP), we assessed driven sulfide oxidation [12]. Sulfide oxidation is integrated rates of AP, OP and sulfide production, and followed the into the oxygenic photosynthetic electron transport chain fate of assimilated CO2 over simulated diel cycles. such that AP and OP can be performed simultaneously and yet compete for their portion in the overall photosynthetic rate [13] (Fig. S1). Photosynthesis rates in individual Methods organisms and the environment therefore reflect a compe- tition between OP and AP. The outcome of this competition Experimental design manifests itself in the partitioning between AP and OP, and is shaped by electron donor and light availability, and To enable simultaneous assessment of depth-resolved gross specificaffinities of, e.g., enzymes of different microbes rates of light-driven sulfide consumption and O2 production, specialized in either one of these photosynthetic modes, or as well as the fate of freshly produced dissolved organic within versatile cyanobacteria capable of switching between carbon (DOC), we sampled a cyanobacterial mat without them. the underlying sediment from the Frasassi sulfidic springs in Although Johnston et al.’s model was developed to September 2012 (Fig. S2). The mat was placed in a flow explain water column conditions, they also suggested that chamber that accommodated sufficient area for microsensor the same feedback mechanisms would arise in cyano- measurements and sub-sampling of the mat during defined bacterial mats. As opposed to pelagic systems, cyano- conditions (Fig. S3) that are detailed in the following sec- bacterial mats are densely packed ecosystems shaped by tions. The incubation started with exposure to darkness for diffusional