A Low-Diversity Microbiota Inhabits Extreme Terrestrial Basaltic Terrains and Their Fumaroles: Implications for the Exploration of Mars
| Autor: | Jesse P. Harrison, Hanna Landenmark, Adam R. H. Stevens, Charles S. Cockell, Kara H. Beaton, Natasha Nicholson, Petra Schwendner, Rosie Cane, Jennifer Wadsworth, Darlene S. S. Lim, R. C. Elphic, Allyson L. Brady, Scott S. Hughes, Samuel J. Payler, Liam Perera, Alexander Sehlke, Andrew W. Dickinson, Shannon E. Kobs Nawotniak, Andrew F. J. Abercromby, Christopher W. Haberle |
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| Přispěvatelé: | Aquatic Biogeochemistry Research Unit (ABRU), Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences |
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Basalts
Extraterrestrial Environment 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Water flow Earth science Biodiversity 01 natural sciences Life HISTORY WATER 010303 astronomy & astrophysics Research Articles Phylogeny Microbiota Biota Mars Exploration Program Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous) Fumarole Human exploration DNA Archaeal Geology DNA Bacterial Weathering Idaho Mars Volcanic Eruptions Hawaii Exobiology 0103 physical sciences CLASS KTEDONOBACTERIA 1172 Environmental sciences 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Basalt BACTERIAL DIVERSITY PHYLLOSILICATES Bacteria Silicates 15. Life on land 115 Astronomy Space science Archaea SOIL SP NOV HABITATS 13. Climate action Space and Planetary Science Alpha diversity COMMUNITIES human activities |
| Zdroj: | Astrobiology |
| ISSN: | 1557-8070 1531-1074 |
| Popis: | A major objective in the exploration of Mars is to test the hypothesis that the planet hosted life. Even in the absence of life, the mapping of habitable and uninhabitable environments is an essential task in developing a complete understanding of the geological and aqueous history of Mars and, as a consequence, understanding what factors caused Earth to take a different trajectory of biological potential. We carried out the aseptic collection of samples and comparison of the bacterial and archaeal communities associated with basaltic fumaroles and rocks of varying weathering states in Hawai'i to test four hypotheses concerning the diversity of life in these environments. Using high-throughput sequencing, we found that all these materials are inhabited by a low-diversity biota. Multivariate analyses of bacterial community data showed a clear separation between sites that have active fumaroles and other sites that comprised relict fumaroles, unaltered, and syn-emplacement basalts. Contrary to our hypothesis that high water flow environments, such as fumaroles with active mineral leaching, would be sites of high biological diversity, alpha diversity was lower in active fumaroles compared to relict or nonfumarolic sites, potentially due to high-temperature constraints on microbial diversity in fumarolic sites. A comparison of these data with communities inhabiting unaltered and weathered basaltic rocks in Idaho suggests that bacterial taxon composition of basaltic materials varies between sites, although the archaeal communities were similar in Hawai'i and Idaho. The taxa present in both sites suggest that most of them obtain organic carbon compounds from the atmosphere and from phototrophs and that some of them, including archaeal taxa, cycle fixed nitrogen. The low diversity shows that, on Earth, extreme basaltic terrains are environments on the edge of sustaining life with implications for the biological potential of similar environments on Mars and their exploration by robots and humans. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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