What are microbial mats?

microbial mats are multilayer leaves of microorganisms-mostly bacteria and archaea (another domain of microbes of bacteria) that dominated most of the planets for billions of years, before the development of multicellular organisms that immediately ate the microbisters as soon as they arrived on the scene. Microbial mats are often found on the interface between two substances, especially in a humid or submerged environment such as the seabed. These microbial mats are held together by extracellular polymeric substances - also known as the base - that strengthen their structure and follow them on the substrate. Initially, the microbes were chemoautotrophic in mats - which means they got their energy and carbon by a combination of chemicals found mostly on hydrothermal ventilation openings at the bottom of the ocean. Then about 2,600 million years AGO, microbes developed photosynthesis, could be expanded from the "hydrothermal ghetto" to a much wider range of environment, especially the TOP 100 - 300 m (328 - 985 ft) of the water column known as PElagic zone, and any seabed section with available light.

microbial mats are a context in the first developed multicellular organisms. Some scientists say that the earliest multicellular organisms, the Ediac fauna, lived to the mats and gained its energy with symbiosis by algae distributed in their bodies. At least this is what seems credible because EDIACARAN organisms lack the intestine or an apparent feed apparatus. In what is called "life on mats", mobile organisms originally evolved like corrals in mats and dug through shallow horizontal burrows, some of which are still preserved.

During the Cambrian period, about 5pm 42 million years, a "bioerosive revolution" occurred, which occurred when mobile animals expanded their size, complexity and set of behavior. In fact, they are complex vertical burrows - absent in the previous period Ediacaran -Part of the official definition of the beginning of Cambrian, along with the appearance of the ubiquitous organisms known as Shelly Faunas. These complex burrows meant the beginning of the end of microbial mats that could no longer afford to exist as a concentrated source of food outside. Today, microbial mats occur only in areas without most other life, such as thin crusts in deserts, in very charming water or deep reach of the ocean DNA.