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Deep biosphere

Scientific ocean drilling has revealed a deep biosphere of widespreadmicrobial life in sub-seafloor sediment. Microbial metabolism in the marine subsurface probably has an important role in global biogeochemical cycles, but deep biosphere activities are not well understood. Life in these settings subsist over long timescales under extreme energy limitation, the levels of activity are very low and therefore it is a major challenge to measure the activity of cells in these settings to determine their role in the subsurface ecosystem. We use a combination of genomic, transcriptomic, and quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP) methods to investigate the metabolism of microbial life that exists deep below the Earth surface and survives over long (millions of years) timescales. A major goal is to quantify the role of individual microbial taxa within the complex carbon flows that occur within these extremely energy limited ecosystems.

Key publications

  • Orsi W*, Magritsch T, Vargas S, Coskun OK, Vuillemin A, Höhna S, Wörheide G, D’Hondt S, Shapiro J, Carini P (2021) Genome evolution in clonal bacterial populations isolated from million-year-old subseafloor sediment. mBio (DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01150-21)
  • Garber AI, Ramirez GA, McAllister SM, Orsi W, D’Hondt S (2021) Cryptic metabolisms in anoxic subseafloor sediment. Environmental Microbiology Reports doi:10.1111/1758-2229.12983
  • Vuillemin A, Vargas S, Coskun O, Pockalny R, Murray R, Smith DC, D’Hondt S, Orsi W* (2020) Atribacteria reproducing over millions of years in the Atlantic abyssal subseafloor. mBio 11:e01937-20.
  • Orsi W*, Schink B, Buckel W, Martin WF (2020) Physiological limits to life in anoxic subseafloor sediment. FEMS Microbiology Reviews 2: 219-231.
  • Orsi W*, Morard R, Vuillemin A, Eitel M, Wörheide G, Milucka J, Kucera M. (2020) Anaerobic metabolism of Foraminifera thriving below the seafloor. The ISME Journal 14: 2580-2594.
  • Orsi W*, Vuillemin A, Rodriguez P, Coskun O, Gomez G, Mohrholz V, Lavik G, Ferdelman T (2020) Metabolic activity analyses demonstrate that Lokiarchaeon exhibits homoacetogenesis in sulfidic marine sediments. Nature Microbiology 5: 248–255.
  • Vuillemin A, Wankel SD, Coskun OK, Magritsch T, Vargas S, Estes ER, Spivack AJ, Smith DC, Pockalny R, Murray RW, D’Hondt S, Orsi W* (2019) Archaea dominate oxic subseafloor communities over multimillion-year timescales. Science Advances 5: eaaw4108.
  • Coskun O, Özen V, Wankel S, Orsi W* (2019) Quantifying population specific growth in benthic bacterial communities under low oxygen using H218O. The ISME Journal 13, 1546-1559.
  • Orsi W* (2018) Ecology and evolution of seafloor and subseafloor microbial communities. Nature Reviews Microbiology 16, 671-683.
  • Orsi W*, Richards TA, Francis WR (2018) Predicted microbial secretomes and their target substrates in marine sediments. Nature Microbiology 3: 32-37.
  • Orsi W*, Biddle J, Edgcomb, V. (2013). Deep sequencing of subseafloor eukaryotic rRNA reveals active Fungi across multiple subseafloor provinces. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56335.
  • Orsi W*, Edgcomb V, Christman G, Biddle J. (2013). Gene expression in the deep biosphere. Nature 499: 205-208.

Kooperationen

Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations
https://www.darkenergybiosphere.org/