Scientists have found new microorganisms that are capable of sustaining in the extreme environment and have different way of converting energy than their counterparts.
The fact came into limelight after a new DNA analysis of rocky soils in the martian-like landscape on some volcanoes in South America when the scientists found handful of bacteria, fungi, and other rudimentary organisms, called archaea, that were seen to have a different way of converting energy than the other microbes elsewhere in the world.
"We haven't formally identified or characterized the species, but these are very different than anything else that has been cultured," Ryan Lynch, microbiologist with the University of Colorado in Boulder, who is one of the finders of the organisms, was quoted as saying in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences.
"Genetically, they're at least five percent different than anything else in the (DNA) database of 2.5 million sequences. The database represents a close-to comprehensive collection of microbes," he added, said a university statement.
Life is really tough on the incredibly dry slopes of the tallest volcanoes in the Atacama region, form where Lynch's co-author, University of Colorado microbiologist Steven Schmidt, collected soil samples.
The intensity of the ultraviolet radiations from the sun in such a high-altitude environment relatively twice as intense in comparison to a low-elevation desert. And at the time when the researchers were on site, temperatures dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius one night, and spiked to 56 degrees Celsius significantly in the next day.
The adaptability of the organisms under such environment remains a mystery.
Although Lynch, Schmidt, and their colleagues looked for genes that are involved in the process of photosynthesis, and inspected into the cells using fluorescent techniques to look for chlorophyll but they could not find any evidence showing the microbes to be photosynthetic.
The scientists think that microbes might slowly convert energy by means of certain chemical reactions that acquires energy and carbon from gases such as carbon monoxide and dimethyl sulphide that blow into the barren mountain area.
The process wouldn't give the microbes a high-energy yield but it could be enough as it adds up over time, Lynch said.
Though, normal soil contains huge number of micro organisms in it but a few remarkable species have made their home in the barren Atacama mountain soil, the new research suggested.
-With inputs from ANI
|
|
Comments:
