Serpentinites, hydrated ultramafic rocks that produce [hyper]alkaline, reducing, H2-rich groundwaters, host subsurface microbial ecosystems. Though in the presence of enormous reducing power, life in serpentinizing systems is limited by oxidant and carbon availability. The forms of carbon that support the serpentinite-hosted microbiome, and their rates of biological assimilation, remain poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Ecol Evol
November 2024
FEMS Microbiol Ecol
August 2024
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
April 2023
The rate at which microorganisms grow and reproduce is fundamental to our understanding of microbial physiology and ecology. While soil microbiologists routinely quantify soil microbial biomass levels and the growth rates of individual taxa in culture, there is a limited understanding of how quickly microbes actually grow in soil. For this work, we posed the simple question: what are the growth rates of soil microorganisms? In this study, we measure these rates in three distinct soil environments using hydrogen-stable isotope probing of lipids with H-enriched water.
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