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Author Topic: novel methanogen prevalent in thawing permafrost  (Read 2706 times)

Pmt111500

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novel methanogen prevalent in thawing permafrost
« on: March 13, 2014, 06:22:16 AM »
this colonises the areas that have recently been thawed: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140214/ncomms4212/full/ncomms4212.html

Image is not from Stordalen Mire but about 120m up (along the same road, Katterjåkk, if I remember correctly), but, I guess the archea is found here also. The road bank (facing north) gathers a bit of of the midnight sun and the thawed portion of this mire reached some 20 meters out.

some speculation follows... as the permafrost environment may see multiple freeze-thaw cycles during a year, the microbes here need always to be ready to produce antifreeze compounds essential for survival. this archea must have these enzymatic systems also (for the winter), but possibly goes into hibernation only once in a lifetime (f.e when it meets the first ice crystal), as opposed to very slowly growing true arctic microbes. when the thaw has reached a fixed temperature (say 2C) these archea would wake up and start multiplying no matter what temperature (2-0C), so getting the numbers to diminish would require repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Microbes also need to be a certain size to multiply so these archea would die if the next freeze comes too soon.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2014, 07:01:52 AM by Pmt111500 »