The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars
The transition of the martian climate from the wet Noachian era to the dry Hesperian (4.1–3.0 Gya) likely resulted in saline surface waters that were rich in sulfur species. Terrestrial analogue environments that possess a similar chemistry to these proposed waters can be used to develop an understa...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7331718 2023-05-15T15:05:19+02:00 The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars Macey, M. C. Fox-Powell, M. Ramkissoon, N. K. Stephens, B. P. Barton, T. Schwenzer, S. P. Pearson, V. K. Cousins, C. R. Olsson-Francis, K. 2020-07-02 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7331718/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32616785 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67815-8 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7331718/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32616785 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67815-8 © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67815-8 2020-07-12T00:30:05Z The transition of the martian climate from the wet Noachian era to the dry Hesperian (4.1–3.0 Gya) likely resulted in saline surface waters that were rich in sulfur species. Terrestrial analogue environments that possess a similar chemistry to these proposed waters can be used to develop an understanding of the diversity of microorganisms that could have persisted on Mars under such conditions. Here, we report on the chemistry and microbial community of the highly reducing sediment of Colour Peak springs, a sulfidic and saline spring system located within the Canadian High Arctic. DNA and cDNA 16S rRNA gene profiling demonstrated that the microbial community was dominated by sulfur oxidising bacteria, suggesting that primary production in the sediment was driven by chemolithoautotrophic sulfur oxidation. It is possible that the sulfur oxidising bacteria also supported the persistence of the additional taxa. Gibbs energy values calculated for the brines, based on the chemistry of Gale crater, suggested that the oxidation of reduced sulfur species was an energetically viable metabolism for life on early Mars. Text Arctic PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Colour Peak ENVELOPE(-91.284,-91.284,79.469,79.469) Scientific Reports 10 1 |
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Article Macey, M. C. Fox-Powell, M. Ramkissoon, N. K. Stephens, B. P. Barton, T. Schwenzer, S. P. Pearson, V. K. Cousins, C. R. Olsson-Francis, K. The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars |
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The transition of the martian climate from the wet Noachian era to the dry Hesperian (4.1–3.0 Gya) likely resulted in saline surface waters that were rich in sulfur species. Terrestrial analogue environments that possess a similar chemistry to these proposed waters can be used to develop an understanding of the diversity of microorganisms that could have persisted on Mars under such conditions. Here, we report on the chemistry and microbial community of the highly reducing sediment of Colour Peak springs, a sulfidic and saline spring system located within the Canadian High Arctic. DNA and cDNA 16S rRNA gene profiling demonstrated that the microbial community was dominated by sulfur oxidising bacteria, suggesting that primary production in the sediment was driven by chemolithoautotrophic sulfur oxidation. It is possible that the sulfur oxidising bacteria also supported the persistence of the additional taxa. Gibbs energy values calculated for the brines, based on the chemistry of Gale crater, suggested that the oxidation of reduced sulfur species was an energetically viable metabolism for life on early Mars. |
format |
Text |
author |
Macey, M. C. Fox-Powell, M. Ramkissoon, N. K. Stephens, B. P. Barton, T. Schwenzer, S. P. Pearson, V. K. Cousins, C. R. Olsson-Francis, K. |
author_facet |
Macey, M. C. Fox-Powell, M. Ramkissoon, N. K. Stephens, B. P. Barton, T. Schwenzer, S. P. Pearson, V. K. Cousins, C. R. Olsson-Francis, K. |
author_sort |
Macey, M. C. |
title |
The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars |
title_short |
The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars |
title_full |
The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars |
title_fullStr |
The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars |
title_full_unstemmed |
The identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late Noachian Mars |
title_sort |
identification of sulfide oxidation as a potential metabolism driving primary production on late noachian mars |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7331718/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32616785 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67815-8 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-91.284,-91.284,79.469,79.469) |
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Arctic Colour Peak |
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Arctic Colour Peak |
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Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
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Sci Rep |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7331718/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32616785 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67815-8 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
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CC-BY |
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67815-8 |
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Scientific Reports |
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10 |
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