Discovery of metabolisms and biogeochemical cycles in extreme environments from South America.

The environments of the Central Andes in South America harbour microbial communities adapted to living in poly-extreme conditions, proposed to be analogous to early Earth conditions. The aim of this project is to describe novel metabolisms and molecular mechanisms involved in adaptive responses to stress conditions, in order to understand the complex relationships between organisms and their environment, and to gain insights into the biogeochemical cycles on Earth.

To achieve this objective, we collect samples from the extreme Andean ecosystems, perform molecular and bioinformatic analyses to determine the structure and function of the communities, study isolates under controlled environmental conditions, and investigate novel proteins through biochemical and biophysical approaches.

Collaborators

Bork group, EMBL Heidelberg

Typas group, EMBL Heidelberg

Finn group, EMBL-EBI Hinxton

Susanne Erdmann lab, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany

LauraSánchez-García, Astrobiology Center (CSIC-INTA), Spain