Filtering by Subject: Microbiology
Published: 2022-11-21
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Microbiology, Planetary Sciences
Earth’s geosphere and biosphere have coevolved over time, influencing each other’s stability and keeping our planet habitable for most of its 4.543 billion years of history. Biogeochemical cycles play a key role in controlling this interaction, connecting long-term geological cycles and the much faster evolution of the Earth’s outer biologically dominated envelopes. A small set of [...]
Published: 2022-10-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Microbiology, Oceanography, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
To quantitatively understand the ecological resilience of an ecosystem with specialized habitats, we focused on deep-sea microbial communities and simulated the response of diverse microbes in specialized habitats to a pulse ecosystem disturbance - the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Two microbial communities with equivalent metabolic libraries were acclimated to the presence [...]
Published: 2022-07-25
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Despite being one of the largest microbial ecosystems on Earth, with >1029 microbial cells, many basic open questions remain about how life exists and thrives in the deep subsurface biosphere, inside Earth’s crust. Much of this ambiguity is due to the fact that it is exceedingly difficult and (often prohibitively expensive) to directly sample the deep subsurface, requiring elaborate drilling [...]
Published: 2020-05-28
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Geochemistry, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
The understanding of soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics has considerably advanced in recent years. It was previously assumed that most SOM consisted of recalcitrant compounds, whereas the emerging view considers SOM as a range of polymers continuously processed into smaller molecules by decomposer enzymes. Mainstreaming these new insights in current models is challenging because of their [...]
Published: 2020-04-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Earth Sciences, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Understanding the response of geo- and biosystems to past climatic disturbance is primordial to assess the short to long terms effects of current global change. Lacustrine sediments are commonly used to investigate the impact of climatic change on biogeochemical cycling. In these sediments, subsurface microbial communities play a primordial role in nutrient, organic matter and elemental cycling, [...]
Published: 2020-02-07
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
It has been shown that reactive soil minerals, specifically iron(III) (oxyhydr)oxides, can trap organic carbon in soils overlying intact permafrost, and may limit carbon mobilization and degradation as it is observed in other environments. However, the use of iron(III)-bearing minerals as terminal electron acceptors in permafrost environments and thus their stability and capacity to prevent [...]
Published: 2019-10-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The deep subsurface is one of Earth’s largest biomes. Here, microorganisms modify volatiles moving between the deep and surface Earth. However, it is unknown whether large-scale tectonic processes affect the distribution of microorganisms across this subterranean landscape. We sampled subsurface microbial ecosystems in deeply-sourced springs across the Costa Rican convergent margin. Noble gases, [...]
Published: 2019-09-19
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology
This paper explores the possibility of existence of ultra-deep biosphere (deeper than 10 km under the surface) and the biogenic earthquake hypothesis -- the idea that subsurface microorganisms might be directly related to earthquake activity. The importance of electroautotrophic type of metabolism is underlined, and the role of telluric currents in this process is explored in some detail, as well [...]
Published: 2019-06-18
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Studies assessing the environmental impacts of oil spills focus primarily on the non-water-soluble components, leaving the fate of the water-soluble fraction (WSF) largely unexplored. We employed untargeted chemical analysis along with biological information to probe the transformation of crude oil WSF in seawater, in the absence of light, in a laboratory experiment. Over a 14-day incubation, [...]
Published: 2019-05-18
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In response to rising CO2 concentrations and increasing global sea surface temperatures, oxygen minimum zones (OMZ), or “dead zones”, are expected to expand. OMZs are fueled by high primary productivity, resulting in enhanced biological oxygen demand at depth, subsequent oxygen depletion, and attenuation of remineralization. This results in the deposition of organic carbon-rich sediments. Carbon [...]
Published: 2019-02-05
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology
Prokaryotic life has dominated most of the evolutionary history of our planet, evolving to occupy virtually all available environmental niches. Extremophiles, especially those thriving under multiple extremes, represent a key area of research for multiple disciplines, spanning from the study of adaptations to harsh conditions, to the biogeochemical cycling of elements. Extremophile research [...]
Published: 2018-12-03
Subjects: Agriculture, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science, Water Resource Management
Despite ongoing management efforts, phosphorus (P) loading from agricultural landscapes continues to impair water quality. Wastewater treatment research has enhanced our knowledge of microbial mechanisms influencing P cycling, especially regarding microbes known as polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs) that store P as polyphosphate (polyP) under oxic conditions and release P under anoxic [...]
Published: 2018-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Geomorphology, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In drylands, microbes that colonise rock surfaces were linked to erosion because water scarcity excludes traditional weathering mechanisms. We studied the origin and role of rock biofilms in geomorphic processes of hard lime and dolomitic rocks that feature comparable weathering morphologies though originating from arid and hyperarid environments, respectively. We hypothesised that weathering [...]
Published: 2018-07-24
Subjects: Biology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project allowed to retrieve a continuous sedimentary record spanning the two last glacial cycles. This unique archive, in such an extreme environment, has allowed for the development of new proxies and the refinement of already available paleoenvironmental studies. In particular, the interaction of the lake and sediment biosphere with elements and minerals that [...]
Published: 2018-02-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Microbiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Laminated microbial mats and microbialites are documented from a variety of coastal marine environments. These features form through: a) the combination of trapping and binding of allochthonous grains, and b) microbially-mediated or controlled precipitation of a variety of minerals, including high-magnesium calcite and dolomite. Intertidal pools and associated microbial features have been [...]