Three truths
- Timed
- Branched off about 3.3 billion years ago · the last 79% of life's story
- Named
- ≈2,000 named living species · 0.1% of all named
- Weighed
- Part of Bacteria (≈70 Gt C), not measured separately.
Bacteria · phylum
Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteriota (Cyanobacteria)
Living · roughly 2,000 described species
Bacteria that perform oxygen-producing photosynthesis. Over hundreds of millions of years they raised the level of oxygen in the atmosphere, and an engulfed cyanobacterium became the chloroplast of algae and plants.
They invented oxygen-making photosynthesis and slowly filled the air with oxygen.
Key characteristics
- Make oxygen from sunlight and water
- Some fix nitrogen from the air
- Build layered mats that can fossilise as stromatolites
- Habitat
- Oceans, lakes, soils and even deserts
- Branched off
- About 3.3 billion years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- Terrabacteria
Classification
Sources
- Cyanobacteria (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- TimeTree: the timescale of life · TimeTree
- Open Tree of Life · Open Tree of Life
- Tree of Life Web Project · Tree of Life Web Project