Tracing the fate of steroids through a hypersaline microbial mat (Kiritimati, Kiribati/Central Pacific)

Abstract

Eukaryotic steranes are typically absent or occur in very low concentrations in Precambrian sedimentary rocks. However, it is as yet unclear whether this may reflect low source inputs or a preservational bias. For instance, it has been proposed that eukaryotic lipids were profoundly degraded in benthic microbial mats that were ubiquitous prior to the advent of vertical bioturbation in the Cambrian ("mat-seal effect"). It is therefore important to test the microbial turnover and degradation of eukaryotic steroids in real-world microbial mats. Here we assessed steroid inventories in different layers of a microbial mat from a hypersaline lake on Kiritimati (Central Pacific). Various eukaryote-derived C₂₇ -C₃₀ steroids were detected in all mat layers. These compounds most likely entered the mat system as unsaturated sterols from the water column or the topmost mat, and were progressively altered during burial in the deeper, anoxic mat layers over c. 10³ years. This is reflected by increasing proportions of saturated sterols and sterenes, as well as the presence of thiosteranes in certain horizons. Sterol alteration can partly be assigned to microbial transformation but is also due to chemical reactions promoted by the reducing environment in the deeper mat layers. Notably, however, compounds with a sterane skeleton were similarly abundant in all mat layers and their absolute concentrations did not show any systematic decrease. The observed decrease of steroid/hopanoid ratios with depth may thus rather indicate a progressive "dilution" by lipids derived from heterotrophic bacteria. Further, pyrolysis revealed that steroids, in contrast to hopanoids, were not sequestered into non-extractable organic matter. This may lead to a preservational bias against steroids during later stages of burial. Taken together, steroid preservation in the microbial mat is not only controlled by heterotrophic degradation, but rather reflects a complex interplay of taphonomic processes.

Keywords: eukaryotes; mat-seal effect; organic biomarkers; preservational pathways; pyrolysis; taphonomy.