Microbial Metabolic Redundancy Is a Key Mechanism in a Sulfur-Rich Glacial Ecosystem

A unique environment at Borup Fiord Pass is characterized by a sulfur-enriched glacial ecosystem in the low-temperature Canadian High Arctic. BFP represents one of the best terrestrial analog sites for studying icy, sulfur-rich worlds outside our own, such as Europa and Mars. The site also allows in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:mSystems
Main Authors: Trivedi, Christopher B., Stamps, Blake W., Lau, Graham E., Grasby, Stephen E., Templeton, Alexis S., Spear, John R.
Other Authors: Makhalanyane, Thulani P., NASA Exobiology
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Society for Microbiology 2020
Subjects:
Arctic
Borup Fiord
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00504-20
https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/mSystems.00504-20
Description
Summary:A unique environment at Borup Fiord Pass is characterized by a sulfur-enriched glacial ecosystem in the low-temperature Canadian High Arctic. BFP represents one of the best terrestrial analog sites for studying icy, sulfur-rich worlds outside our own, such as Europa and Mars. The site also allows investigation of sulfur-based microbial metabolisms in cold environments here on Earth. Here, we report whole-genome sequencing data that suggest that sulfur cycling metabolisms at BFP are more widely used across bacterial taxa than predicted. From our analyses, the metabolic capability of sulfur oxidation among multiple community members appears likely due to functional redundancy present in their genomes. Functional redundancy, with respect to sulfur-oxidation at the BFP sulfur-ice environment, may indicate that this dynamic ecosystem hosts microorganisms that are able to use multiple sulfur electron donors alongside other metabolic pathways, including those for carbon and nitrogen.

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