The research was published last week in the journal Nature Communications.
The study explains how ancient microbial communities buried in deep subsurface environments here on Earth source the energy that they need to live. The process driving the research team’s findings is radiolysis of water – the splitting of water molecules into hydrogen and oxidants as a result of being exposed to naturally occurring radiation. The resulting molecules become the primary source of food and energy for the microbes living in the sediment.
“This work provides an important new perspective on the availability of resources that subsurface microbial communities can use to sustain themselves. This is fundamental to understand life on Earth and to constrain the habitability of other planetary bodies, such as Mars,” said Justine Sauvage, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Gothenburg who conducted the research as a doctoral student at URI.
One of the largest ecosystems on Earth lives beneath the seafloor and eats radiation byproducts
That s pretty metal!
Researchers at the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) Graduate School of Oceanography report that a whole ecosystem of microbes below the sea dines not on sunlight, but on chemicals produced by the natural irradiation of water molecules.
Image credits Ely Penner.
Whole bacterial communities living beneath the sea floor rely on a very curious food source: hydrogen released by irradiated water. This process takes place due to water molecules being exposed to natural radiation, and feeds microbes living just a few meters below the bottom of the open ocean. Far from being a niche feeding strategy, however, the team notes that this radiation-fueled feeding supports one of our planet’s largest ecosystems by volume.
Radioaktivität nährt tiefe Biosphäre - Radioaktiver Zerfall liefert Mikroben im tiefen Sediment ihre Lebensgrundlagen scinexx.de - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scinexx.de Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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