Researchers found a diverse bacterial ecosystem that holds 47 new phylum-level bacterial groups.
They explained that the bacteria came from sedimentary and groundwater samples in Colorado. The researchers explained that they managed to reconstruct genomes of 2,500 microbes from this samples.
This allowed researchers to learn new insights on microbial communities. This told them on how microbial communities work together to create carbon and nitrogen cycles, Science Daily reported.
Jill Banfield from UC Berkley explained that their findings were unexpected. She explained that even though it's unexpected they're not surprised because they know that their knowledge on biogeochemical process is limited.
Karthik Anantharaman, another researcher, explained that they looked at the entire genome to understand the subsurface microbes. She explained that this allowed them to find the great interdependency among microbes.
UC Berkley explained that the study is part of Sustainable Systems Scientific Focus Area 2.0, which is a Berkley Lab project. They explained that they've been studying subterranean microbes for a few years now.
They explained that the named the new bacteria group under UC Berkley Researchers. Banfield believes that they've dominated microbial studies with their findings.
For this project, scientists conducted analysis of 36 percent of the organisms they found. They looked at metabolic handoff, mean one microbe's waste is another microbe's food, which are needed in certain reactions.
Anantharam explained that if microbes did not accept nitrous oxide handoff, greenhouse gases can escape into the atmosphere. This study also showed that carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur came from metabolic handoffs.
They researchers said that these elements are interdependent with microbes. They explained that this is because most of microorganisms can reduce compounds by their own.
The also said that it takes a team for the microorganism reduction process. They said that there's a need for backup microbes that are ready to perform a handoff if one of the microbes is unavailable.
Banfield concluded that to create a high ecosystem resilience there's a need for microbial interconnections through metabolic handoffs.
