Metabolic adaptations underpin high productivity rates in relict subsurface water.

ABSTRACT: Groundwater aquifers are ecological hotspots with diverse microbes essential for biogeochemical cycles. Their ecophysiology has seldom been studied on a basin scale. In particular, our knowledge of chemosynthesis in the deep aquifers where temperatures reach 60 °C, is limited. Here, we investigated the diversity, activity, and metabolic potential of microbial communities from nine wells reaching ancient groundwater beneath Israel's Negev Desert, spanning two significant, deep (up to 1.5 km) aquifers, the Judea Group carbonate and Kurnub Group Nubian sandstone that contain fresh to brackish, hypoxic to anoxic water. We estimated chemosynthetic productivity rates ranging from 0.55 ± 0.06 to 0.82 ± 0.07 µg C L^-1 d^-1 (mean ± SD), suggesting that aquifer productivity may b

SUBMITTER: Atencio B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11300587 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature