Project: Episodic replication in low carbon and energy terrestrial deep biosphere groundwaters
Despite being separated from the sun’s energy, life exists deep underground in cracks within the bedrock. This project will investigate how this life survives in an extremely low energy environment.
Project information
Project manager
Mark Dopson
Other project members
Mathilde Macedo de Amorim, Linnaeus University, Maliheh Mehrshad and Stefan Bertilsson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Participating organisations
Linnaeus University, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Funder
The Swedish Research Council's annual open call 2024
Timetable
2025-01-01 till 2028-12-31
Subject
Ecology (Department of Biology of Environmental Science, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences)
Research group
Systems Biology of Microorganisms
Linnaeus University Centre (Lnuc)
Linnaeus University Centre for the Environment (CENWIN), Linnaeus University Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial model Systems (EEMiS)
Knowledge Environment
Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Water
More about the project
Today, we know that there are large quantities of microorganisms even several kilometers below the earth's surface. Despite the lack of apparently necessary nutrients and energy sources, the organisms that exist there are predominantly alive and actively growing. Water-filled cracks in the bedrock constitute an important habitat in the deep biosphere, and it is likely that microbes in this environment use strategies where they alternate between active and inactive states in order to survive.
Life in the deep biosphere is of great importance for the Earth's nutrient and energy flows. Microbial processes and organisms in this environment may also have more practical applications, for example, to break down pollutants in groundwater reservoirs and in the long-term storage of toxic waste. Despite the importance of the deep biosphere, it is an ecosystem about which we know very little and which probably contains enormous and largely undiscovered biological diversity.
A unique place where we can access the deep biosphere is the Äspö Laboratory outside the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant. The facility is the world's largest infrastructure for research into natural processes in the deep bedrock. In this project, the genetic properties of microorganisms will be studied in the complex microbial communities found in this environment. This includes investigations into whether cells can switch their growth on and off during periods when energy availability varies over time. One method that will be used is large-scale sequencing of RNA from individual cells, a relatively new method that makes it possible to identify processes that may vary between different cells of a species.
The study could lead to significant advances in our understanding of one of the least explored environments on Earth.
The project is part of the research within the research group Systems Biology of Microorganisms, the Linnaeus University Centre for the Environment (CENWIN), Linnaeus University Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial model Systems (EEMiS) and the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Water.