title: Pavilion lake microbialites: morphological, molecular and biochemical evidence for a cold-water transition to colonial aggregates.
abstract: The presence of microbialite structures in a freshwater, dimictic mid-latitudelake and their establishment after the last ice age about 10,000 years ago is puzzling.Freshwater calcite microbialites at Pavilion Lake, British Columbia, Canada, consist of acomplex community of microorganisms that collectively form large, ordered structuredaggregates. This distinctive assemblage of freshwater calcite microbialites was studied through standard microbial methods, morphological observations, phospholipid fatty acid(PLFA) analysis, DNA sequencing and the identification of quorum sensing molecules.Our results suggest that the microbialites may represent a transitional form from theexclusively prokaryotic colonial precursors of stromatolites to the multicellular organismicaggregates that give rise to coral reefs.
authors.affiliation: School of the Environment, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA. dirksm@wsu.edu.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schulze-Makuch
authors.affiliation: NASA Ames Research Center, Mail-Stop 245-3, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA. darlene.lim@nasa.gov.
authors.forename: Darlene
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada. blaval@mail.ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Laval
authors.affiliation: School of the Environment, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA. carol@turse.org.
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Turse
authors.affiliation: School of the Environment, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA. Antonio.Marina@mayo.edu.
authors.forename: Marina Resendes de Sousa
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: António
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hongkong, Hong Kong. chanolivia@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Olivia
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hongkong, Hong Kong. pointing.steve@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Stephen B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Pointing
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada. albrady@ucalgary.ca.
authors.forename: Allyson
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brady
authors.affiliation: Nuytco Research Ltd, 216 East Esplanade, North Vancouver, BC, V7L 1A3, Canada. donnie@nuytco.com.
authors.forename: Donnie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Reid
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, TX 79968, USA. lirwin@utep.edu.
authors.forename: Louis N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Irwin