Extreme extremophiles: antarctic bacteria live on air (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 19, 2020, 23:39 (1558 days ago) @ David Turell

And also in other very cold Earth poles:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200819094756.htm

"In their first follow-up to a high-profile 2017 study which showed microbes in Antarctica have a unique ability to essentially live on air, researchers from UNSW Sydney have now discovered this process occurs in soils across the world's three poles.

"Specifically, researchers found the target genes responsible for the atmospheric chemosynthesis phenomenon they discovered are abundant and widely distributed in the polar soils of the Antarctic, Arctic and Tibetan Plateau in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas.

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"A/Prof Ferrari said the researchers' findings meant that microbes which use trace gases as their energy and carbon source to grow -- unlike photosynthesis which uses light -- was not a process isolated to Antarctica.

"'There are whole ecosystems probably relying on this novel microbial carbon fixation process where microbes use the energy obtained from breathing in atmospheric hydrogen gas to turn carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into carbon -- in order to grow," she said.

"'We think this process occurs simultaneously alongside photosynthesis when conditions change, such as during the polar winter when there is no light, but we aim to confirm this hypothesis in the next stage of our research.

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"'By looking at the environmental parameters in the soil, that's how we knew there was low carbon, low moisture and other factors at play," she said.

"'So, we correlated the target genes for the carbon fixation process against the different sites and found the locations which are drier and lower in nutrients -- carbon and nitrogen -- had a greater potential to support this process, which made sense."

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"'A lot of these ecosystems are quite dry and nutrient poor -- so, these locations are mostly dominated by bacteria," she said.

"'Particularly at the original east Antarctic sites we studied, there is not much else there apart from some mosses and lichens (fungus).

"'Because these bacteria have adapted to survive and have the ability to use trace gases to live, their environment has selected them to become significant contributors to their ecosystems.'"

Comment: As usual the extremophiles prove the life of living organisms is extremely tough and can live anywhere it wants to.