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Coping with Oxygen

2010

Sometime before 2.7 BYA, a new and biologically toxic substance began to appear in the environment. Biologically produced dioxygen, O2, probably first began to accumulate in small pools or layers above cyanobacterial mats. These photosynthesizers must have already developed ways to at least partially deal with dioxygen and, with greater difficulty, the reactive oxygen species (ROS) derived from it (see Chap. 1 and below). But for primitive anaerobes in the vicinity, these new substances must have been especially toxic. Nevertheless, it is clear that they evolved ways to cope with the new threats. One way was to simply avoid dioxygen altogether.