How Bacteria Work for Habitat Sustainability
Even bacteria living in habitats. And they help create habitats for themselves and others...including humans.
I've always been appreciative of the hard, creative work members of the natural systems provide to keep our living planet...well, living. Bacteria are the unsung heroes in many ways...too small to see, too basic for most of us to consider powerful. But that is changing...
Bacterial 'Ropes' Tie Down Shifting Southwest Soils
Researchers from Arizona State University have discovered that several species of microbes (cyanobacteria), at least one found prominently in the deserts of the Southwest, have evolved the trait of rope-building to lasso shifting soil substrates.
Stabilization of Topsoil
These tiny filamentous cyanobacteria are typically found in the environment as multicellular single strands or threads. Though known as pioneers in the biostabilization of soils, scientists have long puzzled over the factors that control and promote the twisting of some species' individual threads into thick cords sometimes inches in length.
Ferran Garcia-Pichel and Martin Wojciechowski, researchers in Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences, examined genetic markers of rope-makers, relating them to shear stress, soil particle size and friction velocity (linked to erosion) to develop an understanding about the relationship between bacterial behavior, evolutionary fitness and environmental effectors.
The results of their study, published Nov. 17 in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS), revealed that rope-building cyanobacteria, typically found in
- fine, sandy desert soils,
- marine subtidal stromatolites
- coastal sand flats
... are able, because of their larger size, to hog-tie sand grains and resist eroding wind and fluid at velocities that would typically wash away their thread-like relatives.
"While forming thick ropes seems to have apparent disadvantages, such as limiting access to light or nutrients, bundling-up actually turns out to be, literally, like throwing your neighbor a life-line," Garcia-Pichel says.
The True Western Pioneers
Wojciechowski adds: "These microbes rope-building attributes have added to their success as the true Western pioneers."
Convergent Evolution
Garcia-Pichel believes that it was environmental effectors that led to the selection of genetic traits to promote rope-building. Phylogenetic analyses performed by the researchers have further shown that the evolution of the trait occurred separately in three different genera; an example of convergent evolution, rather than a tie to a single common rope-building ancestor.
Habitat Builders
In the desert, the initial stabilization of topsoil by rope-builders promotes colonization by a multitude of other microbes. From their interwoven relationships arise complex communities known as "biological soil crusts," important ecological components in the fertility and sustainability of arid ecosystems.
Story Source:
Science Daily, adapted from materials provided by Arizona State University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Edited by Carolyn Allen, owner/publisher of Solutions For Green
Publication Date:
11/19/2009
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