Functional gene analysis and cultivation experiments predict the degradation of diverse extracellular polysaccharides by ubiquitous taxa in pustular microbial mats from Shark Bay, Western Australia

Functional gene analysis and cultivation experiments predict the degradation of diverse extracellular polysaccharides by ubiquitous taxa in pustular microbial mats from Shark Bay, Western Australia. We sequenced the 16s rRNA of enrichment cultures of material from Shark Bay pustular mats to determine how growth on diverse polysaccharide substrates impacted community structure. This is one step towards understanding how exopolysaccharides, which interact with minerals in Shark Bay microbialites, are degraded and by which organisms. This is a step towards understanding biomineralization.