Methane, oxygen, photosynthesis, rubisco and the regulation of the air through time

摘要

Rubisco I's specificity, which today may be almost perfectly tuned to the task of cultivating the global garden, controlled the balance of carbon gases and O2 in the Precambrian ocean and hence, by equilibration, in the air. Control of CO2 and O2 by rubisco I, coupled with CH4 from methanogens, has for the past 2.9Ga directed the global greenhouse warming, which maintains liquid oceans and sustains microbial ecology.