Diverse Viruses Carrying Genes for Microbial Extremotolerance in the Atacama Desert Hyperarid Soil

Yunha Hwang; Janina Rahlff; Dirk Schulze-Makuch; Michael Schloter; Alexander J. Probst

doi:10.1128/mSystems.00385-21

mSystems (Jun 2021)

Diverse Viruses Carrying Genes for Microbial Extremotolerance in the Atacama Desert Hyperarid Soil

Yunha Hwang,
Janina Rahlff,
Dirk Schulze-Makuch,
Michael Schloter,
Alexander J. Probst

Affiliations

Yunha Hwang: ORCiD; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Janina Rahlff: ORCiD; Group for Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, Department of Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany
Dirk Schulze-Makuch: Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Michael Schloter: Research Unit for Comparative Microbiome Analysis, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Oberschleißheim, Germany
Alexander J. Probst: ORCiD; Group for Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, Department of Chemistry, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00385-21
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 6, no. 3

Abstract

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Deserts are one of the largest and rapidly expanding terrestrial ecosystems characterized by low biodiversity and biomass. The hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert, previously thought to be devoid of life, is one of the harshest environments, supporting only scant biomass of highly adapted microbes.

Published in mSystems

ISSN: 2379-5077 (Online)
Publisher: American Society for Microbiology
Country of publisher: United States
LCC subjects: Science: Microbiology
Website: https://journals.asm.org/journal/msystems

About the journal