The microbial community inhabiting Antarctica’s Lake Vida resides in a block of ice several meters thick that has a large reservoir of liquid brine entrained in the ice below 14 meters and a mixture of ice/icy sediment layers below 21 meters. The ice-entrained, anoxic brine is among the coldest, stable liquid cryoecosystems known on Earth with a constant temperature of -13.4 ̊C. Researchers want to know if the microbes have a unique capacity to survive in the cold, dark and anoxic environment, and if this information will be revealed in their transcriptomes. Additionally, they want to know if the microbial communities found in the ice and brine are unique to this ecosystem.
Proposer’s Name: Alison Murray