Microorganisms living in the sediments buried below the seafloor obtain their nutrients by using secreted enzymes to degrade adsorbed detritus. A new study shows that in order to survive for long time scales, microorganisms eat one another after they die.
Microorganisms living in the sediments buried below the seafloor obtain their nutrients by using secreted enzymes to degrade adsorbed detritus. A new study shows that in order to survive for long time scales, microorganisms eat one another after they die.
The sediments that underlie the world’s oceans harbor a diverse array of microbial communities. Many of the organisms in this cold, anoxic environment depend for their survival on organic matter. Indeed, marine sediments constitute the largest reservoir of organic carbon on Earth, and understanding the dynamics of its recycling is vital for the reliable assessment of the impact of global warming. Much of the fixed carbon found in the sediments consists of detrital proteins and carbohydrates. However, little is known about the microbial groups that are responsible for the breakdown of carbon compounds in the subseafloor. To help fill this gap in our knowledge, William Orsi, Professor of Geomicrobiology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LMU, set out to characterize these groups by analyzing, at the genetic level, the enzymes that they secrete into their environment. The results of the study have now been published online in the journal Nature Microbiology.
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