Life on Earth has existed for over 3.5 billion years and has caused fundamental changes in Earth’s biogeochemistry. However, the timing and impact of major events in the evolution of the biosphere are hotly contested, owing partially to the inherent difficulty in studying events that occurred in deep time. In this Review, we discuss the evolving structure of Earth’s biosphere and major changes in its capacity to alter geochemical cycles. We describe evidence that oxygenic photosynthesis evolved relatively early, but contend that marine primary productivity was low, surface oxygen was scarce and marine anoxia was prevalent for the majority of Earth’s history. Anoxygenic phototrophs were likely a key part of the marine biosphere in these low-oxygen oceans, and nutrient uptake by these organisms was one factor limiting the extent of marine oxygenic photosynthesis. Moreover, there are potential issues with the commonly held idea that the diversification of eukaryotes fundamentally altered ocean nutrient cycling and transformed the marine biological pump. Furthermore, we argue that terrestrial primary productivity was a substantial mode of biological carbon fixation following the widespread emergence of continental land masses, even before the rise of land plants, impacting carbon cycling on a global scale.

地球上的生命已经存在了35亿多年，已经引起了地球生物地球化学的根本变化。然而，部分重要的原因是研究深层事件的内在困难，因此在生物圈进化中重大事件的时机和影响受到了激烈的争论。在本综述中，我们讨论了地球生物圈的演化结构及其改变地球化学循环能力的重大变化。我们描述的证据表明，氧的光合作用相对较早地发生了演变，但认为海洋的初级生产力低，地表氧气稀缺且海洋缺氧在地球的大部分历史中都普遍存在。在这些低氧海洋中，产氧营养养分可能是海洋生物圈的关键部分，这些生物吸收养分是限制海洋氧气光合作用程度的因素之一。而且，普遍认为的真核生物的多样性从根本上改变了海洋养分循环并改变了海洋生物泵，因此存在潜在的问题。此外，我们认为，陆地的初级生产力是继大陆性土地块广泛出现之后甚至在陆地植物兴起之前，生物固碳的一种重要模式，它影响了全球范围内的碳循环。