Microbiology: Metabolism key to microbial survival under the seafloor
A paper suggests that the high energy metabolism rate is thought to be the reason why microbial communities survive in sedimentary layers over 120 km below the seafloor, where temperatures reach up to 1 ° C.Nature Communications. Will be published in.This finding will help elucidate the survival strategy of organisms living at temperatures that are the upper limit for organisms.
The subsurface marine sediments are thought to contain a large amount of microorganisms that inhabit the earth.Previous studies have recovered sediment cores from the subduction zone of the Nankai Trough and investigated the range of organisms that live there.At this site, small microbial communities were found to thrive, even though the temperature of the deepest sediments reached 120 ° C.However, the process by which these microorganisms adapted to survive has not been clarified.
Based on previous studies, Tina Treude and colleagues conducted high-sensitivity radiotracer experiments under highly sterile working conditions to investigate how microorganisms survived in sediments.As a result, it was found that the microorganisms inhabiting the high-temperature sedimentary layer on the deep sea floor have an extremely high energy metabolism rate.This result is in stark contrast to previous observations that the life of microorganisms living on the deep sea floor is slow. Treude et al. Found that microbial communities in extreme environments must maintain high metabolic rates to provide the energy needed to repair heat-induced cell damage, but are supplied by heating organic matter in sediments. It raises the hypothesis that it is supported by abundant nutrients.
Treude et al. Suggest that this finding will influence the understanding of the doctrine of subsurface sedimentary environments and upper temperature limits for living organisms.
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Reprinted from: "Microbiology: Metabolic capacity is key to the survival of microorganisms under the seabed'
