Dry limit to photosynthesis and cyanobacterial spatial pattern in the Atacama Desert

Details Dry limit to photosynthesis and cyanobacterial spatial pattern in the Atacama Desert Dry limit to photosynthesis and cyanobacterial spatial pattern in the Atacama Desert

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p41d..02w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P41D-02

Biology

5200 Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology

Scientific paper

Hypolithic autotrophs inhabit translucent rocks in the world`'s most extreme hot and cold deserts. Across a rainfall gradient in the Atacama, we measured a three-fold decline in the molecular diversity of cyanobacterial communities and a drop in their abundance from 28% in relatively wet sites to 0.08% in the driest core. Like plants, hypoliths appear to exhibit traits of self-organized patchiness (aggregated spatial patterns) that tightly correlate with rainfall. Rare cyanobacteria in the core live slowly (3,200 y turnover times) and survive in spatially isolated patches of self-augmented fertility, with the dry limit to their survival occurring at ~<=5 mm mean annual rainfall. Our data suggest that ecohydrological (e.g., terrain, climate) and biological control mechanisms (e.g., biofilms) explain the existence and particular location of cyanobacterial patches. These findings suggest that photosynthetic life is unlikely on the surface of Mars but may have existed in rare oases in the past. The spatial distributions of terrestrial desert microbes should be considered in the remote search for life on Mars.

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