On average, the Great Salt Lake is four times saltier than the ocean and also has heavy metals, high concentrations of sulfur and petroleum seeps. In spite of all this, the lake is the saltiest body of water to support life. The lake hosts brine shrimp, algae and a diverse array of microbes, not to… [Read More]

JGI will sequence three uncultivated viruses (obtained by physical fractionation) from one of the largest biomes on the planet: the oligotrophic (low-nutrient) open ocean. Viruses are an integral part of the marine ecosystem. Every living thing in the ocean appears to be susceptible to disease and death caused by viral infections. Although viruses cannot replicate… [Read More]

The poet John Donne once noted that no man is an island, and the same can be argued for bacteria. Dehalococcoides ethenogenes bacteria are often found in a community of other microorganisms at groundwater sites contaminated with compounds such as tetrachloroethne and trichloroethene. These chemicals are among most the pervasive organic groundwater pollutants because they’re… [Read More]

Subsurface microorganisms play an important role in transforming contaminants. Microbial reactions can modify contaminant solubility, result in the precipitation or dissolution of mineral phases, consume electron donors, and reduce electron acceptors (and thereby alter the chemical and biogeochemical reactivity of microsites). Such transformations could be highly significant to long-term stewardship of contaminatd subsurface sediments. For… [Read More]

Lake Vostok is the largest known subglacial lake in central Antarctica, though it’s been buried under 4 kilometers (nearly 2.5 miles) of ice for the past 15 million years. Because of the thickness of the ice above the water, some researchers theorize that any microbes in the lake might date back to a primordial time…. [Read More]

The subarctic Pacific Ocean is one of the areas considered particularly vulnerable to acidification, which could affect the ocean’s ability to act as a carbon sink. Global warming affects the food webs and biodiversity in marine ecosystems, especially in regions known as oxygen minimum zones where key components of the global carbon cycle take place…. [Read More]

Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria are key players in the nitrogen cycle found both in water and on land. For decades, researchers believed that only bacteria could break down ammonia in the presence of oxygen, but several studies have since disproved that theory. Recent work now suggests that ammonia-oxidizing archaea such as those called Crenarcheota are widespread in… [Read More]

The hoatzin is a chicken-sized relative of the cuckoo bird that can’t fly very well and smells like cow manure. It can express itself through hisses, meows or screams and the chicks are born with functional claws at its fledgling wingtips so they can climb to avoid predators. Found in the South American lowlands, specifically… [Read More]

For several years, researchers have been studying an anaerobic microbial community called a bioreactor that was sampled from chlorinated sediment collected at the Alameda Naval Air Station in Northern California. The microbial community is known to contain Dehalococcoides, bacteria often found in a community of other microorganisms at groundwater sites contaminated with compounds such as… [Read More]