Abstract

The -proteobacteria have recently been recognized as globally ubiquitous in modern marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and have had a significant role in biogeochemical and geological processes throughout Earth's history. To place this newly expanded group, which consists mainly of uncultured representatives, in an evolutionary context, we present an overview of the taxonomic classification for the class, review ecological and metabolic data in key sulphidic habitats and consider the ecological and geological potential of the -proteobacteriain modern and ancient systems. These integrated perspectives provide a framework for future culture- and genomic-based studies.

Author affiliations

1. College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware, Lewes, Delaware 19958, USA.
2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA.
3. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland 21250, USA.
4. Subground Animalcule Retrieval (SUGAR) Program, Extremobiosphere Research Center, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology, 2-15 Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan.
5. The authors contributed equally to this work.

Correspondence to: Barbara J. Campbell^1,5 Email: bjc@UDel.edu

Correspondence to: Annette Summers Engel^2,5 Email: aengel@geol.lsu.edu

Published online 2 May 2006

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