Cyanobacteria can cluster together into colonies called _______, with some discovered in Western Australia that are 3.5 billion
years old. Cyanobacteria produce oxygen and convert sunlight to energy using _______. Plants and arthropods didn't make the transition to land until near the end of the _______ Period. Diverse multicellular eukaryotes didn't appear until the _______ period. A large multicellular eukaryote requires more _______ to survive than a single-cell eukaryote. Respond to the following based on your reading. Describe the biological chemical processes that were responsible for producing oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, eventually leading to the Cambrian Explosion. Explain the importance of oxygen in the evolution of large multicellular animal life.
6.) As Earth cooled, carbon dioxide dissolved in the early ocean. Cyanobacteria consumed carbon dioxide and converted it to oxygen. Methane was removed from the atmosphere as oxygen was produced, eventually leading to the Cambrian Explosion.
7.) Metabolic processes that use oxygen produce more energy than anaerobic metabolism. Simple diffusion of oxygen would limit the size of a multicellular eukaryote, but animals evolved ways to transport oxygen to their tissues, which permitted an increase in size.
