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Surviving in hot and cold: psychrophiles and thermophiles from Deception Island volcano, Antarctica

Bendia, AG; Araujo, GG; Pulschen, AA; Contro, B; Duarte, RTD; Rodrigues, F; Galante, D; (2018) Surviving in hot and cold: psychrophiles and thermophiles from Deception Island volcano, Antarctica. Extremophiles , 22 (6) pp. 917-929. 10.1007/s00792-018-1048-1. Green open access

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Abstract

Polar volcanoes harbor unique conditions of extreme temperature gradients capable of selecting different types of extremophiles. Deception Island is a marine stratovolcano located at Maritime Antarctica that is notable for its pronounced temperature gradients over very short distances, reaching values up to 100 °C in the fumaroles, and subzero temperatures next to the glaciers. Due to these characteristics, Deception can be considered an interesting analogue of extraterrestrial environments. Our main goal in this study was to isolate thermophilic and psychrophilic bacteria from sediments associated with fumaroles and glaciers from two geothermal sites in Deception Island, comprising temperatures between 0 and 98 °C, and to evaluate their survivability to desiccation and UV-C radiation. Our results revealed that culturable thermophiles and psychrophiles were recovered among the extreme temperature gradient in Deception volcano, which indicates that these extremophiles remain alive even when the conditions do not comprise their growth range. The viability of culturable psychrophiles in hyperthermophilic environments is still poorly understood and our work showed the importance of future studies about their survival strategies in high temperatures. Finally, the spore-forming thermophilic isolates which we found have displayed good survival to desiccation and UV-C irradiation, which suggests their potential to be further explored in astrobiological studies.

Type: Article
Title: Surviving in hot and cold: psychrophiles and thermophiles from Deception Island volcano, Antarctica
Location: Germany
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1007/s00792-018-1048-1
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-018-1048-1
Language: English
Additional information: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Keywords: Astrobiology, Deception Island, Extremophiles, Polar volcano, Temperature gradient
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Lab for Molecular Cell Bio MRC-UCL
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10057182
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