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Microbial diversity of a hypersaline microbial mat
Project Investigators:
Other Project Members
J. Harris (Research Staff)Norman Pace (No Role Selected)Charles Robertson (Doctoral Student)Summary
The goal of this project is to survey the microbial life that comprises a hypersaline microbial mat at Guerrero Negro, Mexico using culture independent technology (ribosomal and other gene sequences). The results have expanded significantly our knowledge of microbial diversity, bacterial, archaeal and eucaryotic.
Astrobiology Roadmap Objectives:
- Objective 3.2: Origins and evolution of functional biomolecules
- Objective 3.3: Origins of energy transduction
- Objective 5.1: Environment-dependent, molecular evolution in microorganisms
- Objective 5.2: Co-evolution of microbial communities
- Objective 5.3: Biochemical adaptation to extreme environments
- Objective 7.2: Biosignatures to be sought in nearby planetary systems
Project Progress
In the main area of research, microbiology of hypersaline ecosystems, substantial progress was made in discovering new microbes including eucaryotes, in the Guerrero Negro hypersaline mat system. By partnering with the Joint Genome Institute (DOE) we have conducted the largest survey so far of environmental diversity, expanding significantly the ribosomal RNA tree of life, particularly among bacteria. Several publications have previously been reported and others are being prepared based on those findings.
Beyond the sequence census, the Guerrero Negro project has gone far to expanding the tree of life, not only in terms of numbers, but also the diversity of representation in calculations to extract computationally the actual topology of the tree of life, still unresolved at the deepest levels. The novel diversity provides many additional “survey points” with which to contruct the map of the course of evolution on Earth.
Taking advantage of the CU-Boulder high voltage electron microscopy facility, we have conducted a high resolution morphological study by electron tomography of the organisms Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterium, and Sulfolobus solfataricus, an archaeon. The study provides direct comparison between bacterial and an archaeal cell structure, which contrast significantly. Several morphologically conspicuous cellular features of unknown function were seen in S. solfataricus, providing a background for further studies.
Mission Involvement
N.A.Field Expeditions
Namenone this yearDates-LocationDescription- Untitled
- A Novel Route to New, Simpler, Self-aminoacylating Ribozymes
- Bally project
- Biological potential of Mars
- Carbon Flow Between Organisms in Complex Communities
- DDF: Geomicrobiology of a Unique Ice-Sulfur Spring Ecosystem in the High Arctic
- FU ORIONIS ERUPTIONS
- Functional Genomics of Thioredoxins in Halobacterium sp. NRC-1
- Identifying microbial life at crustal rock-water interfaces
- Microbial diversity of a hypersaline microbial mat
- Origin of multicellularity and complex land-based ecosystem
- Philosophical Problems in Astrobiology; issues on the origin of life,
- Planet Formation and Dynamical Modeling
- Star and Planet Formation
- Sulfur biogeochemistry of the Early Earth
- Understanding the Microbial Ecology of Geologically-based Chemolithoautotrophic Communities