Mesophilic microorganisms build terrestrial mats analogous to Precambrian microbial jungles

Abstract

Microbes venturing onto land could have impacted biogeochemical cycles billions of years before terrestrial plants, but insight into this process on ancient Earth has remained elusive. With the discovery and analysis of microbial mats analogous to those of the Precambrian, Finke and colleagues infer how these microbial jungles likely shaped ecology and climate.