Fig. 6
From: Microbial dark matter filling the niche in hypersaline microbial mats
Proposed ecological roles of MDM in Shark Bay microbial mats. Orange rectangular indicates metabolic pathways, green oval represents MDM in Shark Bay microbial mats while blue circles represent genes found in both a previous study [24] and the current study. CO2/CO, H2 and ribose are proposed as main energy currencies of Shark Bay MDM, enclosed in red boxes. Dashed arrows indicate putative metabolic exchange/microbial interactions. Within the dashed box are genes involved in environmental adaptation. HM hydrogenotrophic methanogens, WL pathway Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, 3HP/4HB pathway 3-hydroxypropionate/4-hydroxybutyrate pathway, EPS extracellular polymeric substance, DGR diversity-generating retroelements. A more detailed proposed ecological model of Shark Bay microbial mats combining MDM with other community members is illustrated in Additional File 17: Figure S16