When the World Turned Green: Age of Plant Photosynthesis Revealed

Ancient rocks from a remote Canada island contain the oldest algae ever discovered.
The samples, found on Canada's Baffin Island, also reveal roughly when plants had the
components necessary for photosynthesis, a new study finds.
The finding reveals that Bangiomorpha pubescens, the oldest known algae on Earth, is more than
1 billion years old. Working backward, the researchers figured out that algae could likely harvest
the sun's energy through photosynthesis about 1.25 billion years ago. [Photo Timeline: How the
Earth Formed]
"I think it's pretty spectacular that this fossil is almost identical to red algae [one of the oldest
groups of algae that still exists today], and we have shown that it is over 1 billion years old," said
study lead researcher Timothy Gibson, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth and
Planetary Sciences at McGill University, in Canada.
Earth's air
When a plant photosynthesizes, it uses sunlight to fuel a reaction between water and carbon
dioxide, producing carbohydrates and oxygen. Bacteria have been photosynthesizing since at
least 2.5 billion years ago, but B. pubescens is the first known example of a eukaryote that could
photosynthesize. (Eukaryotes are organisms, such as plants, some algae and animals, whose cells
have a membrane surrounding the nucleus and other organelles that are inside them.)
"Prior to about 2.5 billion years ago, there was essentially no oxygen in the ocean," Gibson said.
Primeval bacteria helped change that. "This early photosynthesis is responsible for the very
earliest atmospheric oxygen," Gibson said.
However, there was more uncertainty when it came to more complex organisms' ability to
photosynthesize.
Narrowing range
Researchers originally published dates for B. pubescens in 1990 in the journal Science, stating
that the algae — which sported the first widely accepted evidence for photosynthesis in plants
(which includes algae) — was between 1.2 billion and 720 million years old.
But this time window was vast, so in the current study, Gibson and colleagues narrowed it by
collecting and dating new samples of the black shale found in rock layers around the algae
fossils. Their new analysis showed that B. pubescens lived between 1.06 billion and 1.03 billion
years ago, with its most likely age being 1.047 billion years old, Gibson said.
After the researchers determined the age of B. pubescens, they used a molecular clock analysis
— that is, a computer model that uses rates of genetic change to calculate evolutionary events —
to figure out when photosynthesis likely began in eukaryotes.
The analysis suggests that "1.25 billion years ago, a complex but microscopic organism
'swallowed' a simple photosynthetic bacterium and gained its photosynthetic powers," Gibson
told Live Science in an email. "It was then able to pass the DNA that codes for photosynthesis
down to its offspring, and now, essentially all modern plants use the same organelle — the
chloroplast — for photosynthesis."
However, although B. pubescens has helped establish when eukaryotes began to
photosynthesize, it's still unclear when Earth's oxygen levels rocketed to modern levels, Gibson
said.
"The question of when oxygen reached anything like modern levels is a topic we are still trying
to pin down, but it likely wasn't until closer to half a billion years ago," Gibson said.

Ringkasan

Ancient rocks from a remote Canada island contain the oldest algae ever discovered. The
samples, found on Canada's Baffin Island, also reveal roughly when plants had the components
necessary for photosynthesis, a new study finds.

Bacteria have been photosynthesizing since at least 2.5 billion years ago, but B.
pubescens is the first known example of a eukaryote that could photosynthesize. Their new
analysis showed that B. pubescens lived between 1.06 billion and 1.03 billion years ago, with its
most likely age being 1.047 billion years old, Gibson said.

The analysis suggests that "1.25 billion years ago, a complex but microscopic organism
'swallowed' a simple photosynthetic bacterium and gained its photosynthetic powers," Gibson
told Live Science in an email. "It was then able to pass the DNA that codes for photosynthesis
down to its offspring, and now, essentially all modern plants use the same organelle — the
chloroplast — for photosynthesis." However, although B. pubescens has helped establish when
eukaryotes began to photosynthesize, it's still unclear when Earth's oxygen levels rocketed to
modern levels, Gibson said. "The question of when oxygen reached anything like modern levels
is a topic we are still trying to pin down, but it likely wasn't until closer to half a billion years
ago," Gibson said.

Grammarly

When the World Turned Green: Age of Plant Photosynthesis Revealed

Ancient rocks from a remote Canada island contain the oldest algae ever discovered.
The samples, found on Canada's Baffin Island, also reveal roughly when plants had the
components necessary for photosynthesis, a new study finds.
The finding reveals that Bangiomorpha pubescens, the oldest known algae on Earth, is
more than 1 billion years old. Working backward, the researchers figured out that algae could
likely harvest the sun's energy through photosynthesis about 1.25 billion years ago. [Photo
Timeline: How the Earth Formed]
"I think it's pretty spectacular that this fossil is almost identical to red algae [one of the
oldest groups of algae that still exists today], and we have shown that it is over 1 billion years
old," said study lead researcher Timothy Gibson, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth
and Planetary Sciences at McGill University, in Canada.
Earth's air
When a plant photosynthesizes, it uses sunlight to fuel a reaction between water and
carbon dioxide, producing carbohydrates and oxygen. Bacteria have been photosynthesizing
since at least 2.5 billion years ago, but B. pubescens is the first known example of a eukaryote
that could photosynthesize. (Eukaryotes are organisms, such as plants, some algae and (add a
comma) animals, whose cells have a membrane surrounding the nucleus and other organelles
that are inside them.)
"Prior to about 2.5 billion years ago, there was essentially no oxygen in the ocean," Gibson said.
Primeval bacteria helped change that. "This early photosynthesis is responsible for the very
earliest atmospheric oxygen," Gibson said.
However, there was more uncertainty when it came to more complex organisms' ability
to photosynthesize.
Narrowing range
 Researchers originally published dates for B. pubescens in 1990 in the journal Science,
stating that the algae — which sported the first widely accepted evidence for photosynthesis in
plants (which includes algae) — was between 1.2 billion and 720 million years old.
But this time window was vast, so in the current study, Gibson and colleagues narrowed
it by collecting and dating new samples of the black shale found in rock layers around the algae
fossils. Their new analysis showed that B. pubescens lived between 1.06 billion and 1.03 billion
years ago, with its most likely age being 1.047 billion years old, Gibson said.
After the researchers determined the age of B. pubescens, they used a molecular clock
analysis — that is, a computer model that uses rates of genetic change to calculate evolutionary
events — to figure out when photosynthesis likely began in eukaryotes.
The analysis suggests that "1.25 billion years ago, a complex but microscopic organism
'swallowed' a simple photosynthetic bacterium and gained its photosynthetic powers," Gibson
told Live Science in an email. "It was then able to pass the DNA that codes for photosynthesis
down to its offspring, and now, essentially all modern plants use the same organelle — the
chloroplast — for photosynthesis."
However, although B. pubescens has helped establish when eukaryotes began to
photosynthesize, it's still unclear when Earth's oxygen levels rocketed to modern levels, Gibson
said. "The question of when oxygen reached anything like modern levels is a topic we are still
trying to pin down, but it likely wasn't until closer to half a billion years ago," Gibson said.