Geomicrobiology of Subglacial Ice Above Lake Vostok, Antarctica

Priscu, John C.; Adams, Edward; Lyons, W. Berry; Voytek, Mary A.; Mogk, David W.; Brown, Robert L.; McKay, Christopher P.; Takacs, Cristina D.; Welch, Kathleen A.; Wolf, Craig F.; Kirshtein, Julie D.; Avci, Recep

doi:10.1126/science.286.5447.2141

Cited by 387 publications

(275 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Surface water from Subglacial Lake Vostok, East Antarctica, which had accreted to the base of the ice sheet, was recovered during drilling of the Vostok ice core [15]. Samples of this material contained microbial cells and offered the first evidence for deep subsurface life in Antarctica [6,16,17]. A sediment core collected from under the Kamb Ice Stream (KIS), West Antarctica, which is due north of Whillans Ice Stream (WIS), was also shown to contain viable microbial cells [18].…”

Section: Antarctic Subglacial Lakes: An Underexplored Microbial Habitatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subglacial Lake Whillans microbial biogeochemistry: a synthesis of current knowledge

Mikucki

Lee

Ghosh

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Liquid water occurs below glaciers and ice sheets globally, enabling the existence of an array of aquatic microbial ecosystems. In Antarctica, large subglacial lakes are present beneath hundreds to thousands of metres of ice, and scientific interest in exploring these environments has escalated over the past decade. After years of planning, the first team of scientists and engineers cleanly accessed and retrieved pristine samples from a West Antarctic subglacial lake ecosystem in January 2013. This paper reviews the findings to date on Subglacial Lake Whillans and presents new supporting data on the carbon and energy metabolism of resident microbes. The analysis of water and sediments from the lake revealed a diverse microbial community composed of bacteria and archaea that are close relatives of species known to use reduced N, S or Fe and CH4 as energy sources. The water chemistry of Subglacial Lake Whillans was dominated by weathering products from silicate minerals with a minor influence from seawater. Contributions to water chemistry from microbial sulfide oxidation and carbonation reactions were supported by genomic data. Collectively, these results provide unequivocal evidence that subglacial environments in this region of West Antarctica host active microbial ecosystems that participate in subglacial biogeochemical cyclingauthorsversionPeer reviewe

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Section: Antarctic Subglacial Lakes: An Underexplored Microbial Habitatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subglacial Lake Whillans microbial biogeochemistry: a synthesis of current knowledge

Mikucki

Lee

Ghosh

et al. 2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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“…I with the highest abundance of culturable bacteria was deposited during premonsoon season, a period consistent to the highest atmospheric dust loading transported by westerlies (Kang et al, 2000). The close correlation between concentration of culturable bacteria and dust was also identified in Vostok ice core (Abyzov et al, 1998;Priscu et al, 1998Priscu et al, , 1999 and Malan Ice Cap (Zhang et al, 2001;Yao et al, 2006). (Table 4).…”

Section: Seasonality Of Concentrations Of Culturable Bacteriamentioning

confidence: 80%

atmospheric circulation

2014

Dictionary Geotechnical Engineering/Wörterbuch GeoTechnik

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Abstract.Only recently has specific attention been given to culturable bacteria in Tibetan glaciers, but their relation to atmospheric circulation is less understood yet. Here we present the results of culturable bacteria preserved in an ice core drilled from the East Rongbuk (ER) glacier, Himalayas. The average concentrations of culturable bacteria are 5.0, 0.8, 0.1 and 0.7 CFU mL −1 for the glacier ice deposited during the premonsoon, monsoon, postmonsoon and winter seasons, respectively. The high concentration of culturable bacteria in ER glacier deposited during the premonsoon season is attributed to the transportation of continental dust stirred up by the frequent dust storms during spring. This is also confirmed by the spatial distribution of culturable bacteria in Tibetan glaciers. Continental dust originated from the Northwest China accounts for the high abundance of culturable bacteria in the northern Tibetan Plateau, while monsoon moisture exerts great influence on culturable bacteria with low abundance in the southern plateau. The numbers of representatives with different ARDRA patterns from RFLP analysis are 10, 15, 1 and 2 for the glacial ice deposited during the premonsoon, monsoon, postmonsoon and winter seasons, respectively, suggesting that culturable bacteria deposited in ER glacier during monsoon season are more diverse than that deposited during the other seasons, possibly due to their derivation from both marine air masses and local or regional continental sources, while culturable bacteria deposited during the other seasons are from only one possible origin that is transported by westerlies. Our results show the first report of seasonal variations of abundance and species diversity of culturable bacteria recovered from glacial ice in the Himalayas, and we suggest that microorganisms in Himalayan ice might provide a potential new proxy for the reconstruction of atmospheric circulation.

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“…Numerous papers report the identification of microbes of diverse taxa, including nonextremophiles in ice (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). Eukarya up to Ϸ10 2 m in size, some of which are viable, have been found in glacial ice (23)(24)(25)(26)(27).…”

Section: Need For a Third Microbial Habitat In Icementioning

confidence: 99%

Diffusion-controlled metabolism for long-term survival of single isolated microorganisms trapped within ice crystals

Rohde

Price²

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Two known habitats for microbial metabolism in ice are surfaces of mineral grains and liquid veins along three-grain boundaries. We propose a third, more general, habitat in which a microbe frozen in ice can metabolize by redox reactions with dissolved small molecules such as CO 2 , O 2 , N 2 , CO, and CH 4 diffusing through the ice lattice. We show that there is an adequate supply of diffusing molecules throughout deep glacial ice to sustain metabolism for >10 5 yr. Using scanning fluorimetry to map proteins (a proxy for cells) and F420 (a proxy for methanogens) in ice cores, we find isolated spikes of fluorescence with intensity consistent with as few as one microbial cell in a volume of 0.16 μl with the protein mapper and in 1.9 μl with the methanogen mapper. With such precise localization, it should be possible to extract single cells for molecular identification.

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Geomicrobiology of Subglacial Ice Above Lake Vostok, Antarctica

Cited by 387 publications

References 21 publications

Subglacial Lake Whillans microbial biogeochemistry: a synthesis of current knowledge

Subglacial Lake Whillans microbial biogeochemistry: a synthesis of current knowledge

atmospheric circulation

Diffusion-controlled metabolism for long-term survival of single isolated microorganisms trapped within ice crystals

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