Anaerobic animals from an ancient, anoxic ecological niche

BMC Biology

Commentary

Marek Mentel¹  William Martin² 

[1] Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina CH-1, 842 15, Bratislava, Slovakia;Institute of Botany III, University of Düsseldorf, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany;

关键词: Photic Zone;    Eukaryotic Lineage;    Metazoan Evolution;    Anoxic Marine Sediment;    Anaerobic Habitat;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1741-7007-8-32

 received in 2010-03-16, accepted in 2010-04-06,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Tiny marine animals that complete their life cycle in the total absence of light and oxygen are reported by Roberto Danovaro and colleagues in this issue of BMC Biology. These fascinating animals are new members of the phylum Loricifera and possess mitochondria that in electron micrographs look very much like hydrogenosomes, the H2-producing mitochondria found among several unicellular eukaryotic lineages. The discovery of metazoan life in a permanently anoxic and sulphidic environment provides a glimpse of what a good part of Earth's past ecology might have been like in 'Canfield oceans', before the rise of deep marine oxygen levels and the appearance of the first large animals in the fossil record roughly 550-600 million years ago. The findings underscore the evolutionary significance of anaerobic deep sea environments and the anaerobic lifestyle among mitochondrion-bearing cells. They also testify that a fuller understanding of eukaryotic and metazoan evolution will come from the study of modern anoxic and hypoxic habitats.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Mentel and Martin; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010