Laminated Cyanobacterial Mats

Cyanobacteria dominated hypersaline laminated mats are a useful model ecosystem for the study of c flow in complex communities as they use photosynthesis to sustain a more or less closed system.

Laminated cyanobacterial mats.

Bioturbation by larger animals also destroys the simple 1 dimensional vertical zonation patterns characteristic of microbial mats and. Cyanobacterial bacterial consortial associations are taxonomically complex metabolically interactive self sustaining prokaryotic communities representing pioneer and often the only biota inhabiting extreme aquatic and terrestrial environments. These finely laminated siliceous sinters were composed of a heterogeneously nucleated amorphous silica matrix which seemed to precipitate in the spaces between filaments. They are typically composed of blue green cyanobacteria and sediments.

Formation of microlaminated sediments in solar salt works along the mediterranean coast in southern france only occurs within a restricted salinity range of 60 150 gl 1 these salinities are associated with development of a laminated cyanobacterial mat composed primarily of the filamentous cyanobacteria microcoleus chthonoplastes interbedded with detrital laminae. A microbial mat is a multi layered sheet of microorganisms mainly bacteria and archaea and also just bacterial microbial mats grow at interfaces between different types of material mostly on submerged or moist surfaces but a few survive in deserts. Specific representatives of the meiofauna and the macrofauna disrupt and ingest the cyanobacterial mats. The cyanobacterial mats are completely destroyed within 1 to 2 wk after colonisation by benthic animals.

They colonize environments ranging in temperature from 40 c to 120 c. Algal mats are one of many types of microbial mat that forms on the surface of water or rocks. Formation occurs when alternating layers of blue green bacteria and sediments are deposited or grow in place creating dark laminated layers. Laminated mats and aggregates exemplify such communities.

Flat laminated mats found in very shallow pools lagoons and salt marshes often have a distinct layer of anoxygenic purple phototrophs with bacteriochlorophyll b below layers of cyanobacteria and purple and green phototrophs nicholson et al 1987 pierson et al 1987 stolz 1990. Weakly laminated silica layers among filamentous cyanobacteria were observed in both mats. Forms of laminated cyanobacterial mats and their res pective species composition structure and stratifica tion in relation to ecology and topography in a lotie setting. Stal lj grossberger s krumbein we 1984 nitrogen fixation associated with the cyanobacterial mat of a marine laminated microbial ecosystem.