From the bubbling hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, researchers from Montana State University (MSU) have analyzed three thermophilic microbes, revealing how they may have adapted in a low-oxygen environment and evolved to live today.
After over two decades of research, the new study published in Nature Communications, highlights three microbes collected from two different hot springs within Yellowstone National Park.
With the new information gathered, researchers are hoping it can shed light on the way life evolved before the Great Oxidation Event occurred 2.4 million years ago. Prior to the event, Earth’s atmosphere contained about 2 percent oxygen. Afterward, it jumped to 20 percent.
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Conch Spring and Octopus Spring were selected for microbe extraction because of their geochemical similarities, according to researchers Bill Inskeep, a professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at MSU, and ...
