Sequestered in Antarctica’s Vestfold Hills, Deep Lake became isolated from the ocean 3,500 years ago by the Antarctic continent rising, resulting in a saltwater ecosystem that remains liquid in extreme cold, and providing researchers a unique niche for studying the evolution of the microbes that now thrive under such conditions. Deep Lake’s microscopic inhabitants are dominated by haloarchaea, microbes that require high salt concentrations to grow and are naturally adapted to conditions — at minus 20°C — that would prove lethally cold to other organisms.
In a detailed analysis published online the week of September 30, 2013 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers have, for the first time, been able to get a complete ecological picture of the Deep Lake microbial community.
Read the full, original story here: Cold, Salty and Promiscuous: Gene-Shuffling Microbes Dominate Antarctica’s Deep Lake