The Cedars, in coastal northern California, is an active site of peridotite serpentinization. The spring waters that emerge from this system feature very high pH, low redox potential, and low ionic concentrations, making it an exceptionally challenging environment for life. We report a multiyear, culture-independent geomicrobiological study of three springs at The Cedars that differ with respect to the nature of the groundwater feeding them. Within each spring, both geochemical properties and microbial diversity in all three domains of life remained stable over a 3-y period, with multiple samples each year. Between the three springs, however, the microbial communities showed considerable differences that were strongly correlated with the source of the serpentinizing groundwater. In the spring fed solely by deep groundwater, phylum Chloroflexi, class Clostridia, and candidate division OD1 were the major taxa with one phylotype in Euryarchaeota. Less-abundant phylotypes include several minor members from other candidate divisions and one phylotype that was an outlier of candidate division OP3. In the springs fed by the mixture of deep and shallow groundwater, organisms close to the Hydrogenophaga within Betaproteobacteria dominated and coexisted with the deep groundwater community members. The shallow groundwater community thus appears to be similar to those described in other terrestrial serpentinizing sites, whereas the deep community is distinctly different from any other previously described terrestrial serpentinizing community. These unique communities have the potential to yield important insights into the development and survival of life in these early-earth analog environments.biodiversity | extremophile | alkaliphile | small subunit rRNA | hydrogen

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To date several different strains of Shewanella have been sequenced; however, many of these isolates have not been evaluated in microbial fuel cell (MFC) systems. Here we present a summary of power densities, current densities, cell attachment, and coulombic efficiencies for eight different Shewanella strains in two different MFC configurations. Our results show that different Shewanella strains have unique characteristics as MFC biocatalysts and that strain S. putrefaciens W3-18-1 significantly outperforms S. oneidensis MR-1. Further, these results suggest that Shewanella strain performance in MFCs is strongly impacted by system parameters such as buffer composition and ion exchange membrane selection.