The vast scale of life beneath our feet

[Dan_Eastwood]

You would need a microscope to see this subterranean biosphere, however.

It is made up mostly of microbes, such as bacteria and their evolutionary cousins, the archaea.

Nonetheless, it represents a lot of carbon - about 15 to 23 billion tonnes of it. That is hundreds of times more carbon than is woven into all the humans on the planet.

“Something like 70% of the total number of microbes on Earth are below our feet,” said Karen Lloyd from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, US.

“So, this changes our perception of where we find life on Earth, from mostly on the surface in things like trees and whales and dolphins, to most of it actually being underground,” she told BBC News.

Amount of deep life on Earth quantified

[T_aquaticus]

It is also worth mentioning that the vast majority of these organisms live without oxygen, and in many cases they can’t grow in the presence of oxygen. I think everyone should enjoy the wonders (insert sarcastic tone) of growing anaerobic bacteria at some point in their lives.

What is truly humbling is the vast number of unknown species that exist on and in the Earth, many of which we aren’t even able to grow in the lab. Any time we start to get too full of ourselves we should take a scoop of soil from deep within the Earth and remind ourselves of how ignorant we still are.

[Dan_Eastwood]

Nature Article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0221-6

Web Site:
https://deepcarbon.net/

[cwhenderson (Curtis Henderson)]

@T_aquaticus

I think everyone should enjoy the wonders (insert sarcastic tone) of growing anaerobic bacteria at some point in their lives.

Hahahahah, I’ve had the “pleasure” of helping students set up candle jars!

I’m sure the metagenomic work is ongoing, so it will be very interesting to see what “comes to the surface”!

[Guy_Coe]

I hear there’s quite an “underground market” in culturing these things… : )