Microbial carbonate abundance compared with fluctuations in metazoan diversity over geological time

Abstract

Secular variation in microbial carbonate abundance may be reflected by stromatolite morphotype diversity and reefal microbial carbonate abundance. These datasets reveal long-term changes over the past 3000 Myr that include a peak of abundance 1250 Myr ago, Late Proterozoic decline, Cambrian resurgence, and fluctuating decline during the remainder of the Phanerozoic. It is conceivable that Proterozoic metazoan diversification coincided with inception of stromatolite decline ∼1250 Myr ago, but microbial carbonate increase during Cambrian metazoan radiation together with failure of microbial carbonates to increase in the aftermaths of the End-Ordovician, End-Triassic and End-Cretaceous Mass Extinctions suggest that factors in addition to metazoan competition significantly influenced long-term changes in microbial carbonate abundance.