Microbial mats ecosystems

Abstract

Microbial mats are a dynamic community visible to the naked eye. They are classified based on the nature of their environment as hypersaline mats, coastal mats, acids microbial mats and microbial mats in oligotrophic environment. In microbial mats, different groups of microorganisms are found and are involved in different biological processes and interaction such as symbiosis, neutralism, commensalism, competition and parasitism. Most of these organisms in microbial mats are involved in different biological processes such as sulfate reduction, methanogenesis, nitrogen fixation, metal reduction, denitrogenation and photosynthesis. In microbial mats, photosynthesis is the major main source of nutrients and energy. It has shown to play many important roles in modifying the atmospheric composition yielding H2, O2, as wel as CH4. Microbial mats have found many biotechnological applications such as cancer treatment, bioremediation, bioenergy, aquaculture and molecular biology. Thus, microbial mat being a unique ecosystem where processes as microbial diversity, evolutionary trend and their adaption to extreme conditions of the environment can be studied makes it a natural laboratory.