Microbiology and Moisture Uptake of Desert Soils

Details Microbiology and Moisture Uptake of Desert Soils Microbiology and Moisture Uptake of Desert Soils

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p51d0945k&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P51D-0945

Biology

0456 Life In Extreme Environments, 1866 Soil Moisture, 4840 Microbiology And Microbial Ecology (0465), 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

We have initiated an interdisciplinary study of the microbiology and water content of desert soils to better understand microbial activity in extreme arid environments. Water is the one constituent that no organism can live without; nevertheless, there are places on Earth with an annual rainfall near zero that do support microbial ecosystems. These hyperarid deserts (e.g. Atacama and the Antarctic Dry Valleys) are the closest terrestrial analogs to Mars, which is the subject of future exploration motivated by the search for life beyond Earth. We are modeling the moisture uptake by soils in hyperarid environments to quantify the environmental constraints that regulate the survival and growth of micro-organisms. Together with the studies of moisture uptake, we are also characterizing the microbial population in these soils using molecular and culturing methods. We are in the process of extracting DNA from these soils using MoBio extraction kits. This DNA will be used as a template to amplify bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomal DNA to determine the diversity of the microbial population. We also have been attempting to determine the density of organisms by culturing on one-half strength R2A agar. The long-range goal of this research is to identify special adaptations of terrestrial life that allow them to inhabit extreme arid environments, while simultaneously quantifying the environmental parameters that enforce limits on these organisms' growth and survival.

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