Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs
Earth’s subsurface is often isolated from phototrophic energy sources and characterized by chemotrophic modes of life. These environments are often oligotrophic and limited in electron donors or electron acceptors, and include continental crust, subseafloor oceanic crust, and marine sediment as well...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6058055 2023-05-15T18:02:04+02:00 Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs Jones, Rose M. Goordial, Jacqueline M. Orcutt, Beth N. 2018-07-18 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6058055/ https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01605 en eng Frontiers Media S.A. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6058055/ http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01605 Copyright © 2018 Jones, Goordial and Orcutt. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. CC-BY Microbiology Text 2018 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01605 2018-08-05T00:30:23Z Earth’s subsurface is often isolated from phototrophic energy sources and characterized by chemotrophic modes of life. These environments are often oligotrophic and limited in electron donors or electron acceptors, and include continental crust, subseafloor oceanic crust, and marine sediment as well as subglacial lakes and the subsurface of polar desert soils. These low energy subsurface environments are therefore uniquely positioned for examining minimum energetic requirements and adaptations for chemotrophic life. Current targets for astrobiology investigations of extant life are planetary bodies with largely inhospitable surfaces, such as Mars, Europa, and Enceladus. Subsurface environments on Earth thus serve as analogs to explore possibilities of subsurface life on extraterrestrial bodies. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of subsurface environments as potential analogs, and the features of microbial communities existing in these low energy environments, with particular emphasis on how they inform the study of energetic limits required for life. The thermodynamic energetic calculations presented here suggest that free energy yields of reactions and energy density of some metabolic redox reactions on Mars, Europa, Enceladus, and Titan could be comparable to analog environments in Earth’s low energy subsurface habitats. Text polar desert PubMed Central (PMC) Frontiers in Microbiology 9 |
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Microbiology Jones, Rose M. Goordial, Jacqueline M. Orcutt, Beth N. Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs |
topic_facet |
Microbiology |
description |
Earth’s subsurface is often isolated from phototrophic energy sources and characterized by chemotrophic modes of life. These environments are often oligotrophic and limited in electron donors or electron acceptors, and include continental crust, subseafloor oceanic crust, and marine sediment as well as subglacial lakes and the subsurface of polar desert soils. These low energy subsurface environments are therefore uniquely positioned for examining minimum energetic requirements and adaptations for chemotrophic life. Current targets for astrobiology investigations of extant life are planetary bodies with largely inhospitable surfaces, such as Mars, Europa, and Enceladus. Subsurface environments on Earth thus serve as analogs to explore possibilities of subsurface life on extraterrestrial bodies. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of subsurface environments as potential analogs, and the features of microbial communities existing in these low energy environments, with particular emphasis on how they inform the study of energetic limits required for life. The thermodynamic energetic calculations presented here suggest that free energy yields of reactions and energy density of some metabolic redox reactions on Mars, Europa, Enceladus, and Titan could be comparable to analog environments in Earth’s low energy subsurface habitats. |
format |
Text |
author |
Jones, Rose M. Goordial, Jacqueline M. Orcutt, Beth N. |
author_facet |
Jones, Rose M. Goordial, Jacqueline M. Orcutt, Beth N. |
author_sort |
Jones, Rose M. |
title |
Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs |
title_short |
Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs |
title_full |
Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs |
title_fullStr |
Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs |
title_full_unstemmed |
Low Energy Subsurface Environments as Extraterrestrial Analogs |
title_sort |
low energy subsurface environments as extraterrestrial analogs |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6058055/ https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01605 |
genre |
polar desert |
genre_facet |
polar desert |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6058055/ http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01605 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2018 Jones, Goordial and Orcutt. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01605 |
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Frontiers in Microbiology |
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9 |
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1766171742988926976 |