TY - JOUR
T1 - Aeolian transport of viable microbial life across the Atacama Desert, Chile
T2 - Implications for Mars
AU - Azua-Bustos, Armando
AU - González-Silva, Carlos
AU - Fernández-Martínez, Miguel Ángel
AU - Arenas-Fajardo, Cristián
AU - Fonseca, Ricardo
AU - Martín-Torres, F. Javier
AU - Fernández-Sampedro, Maite
AU - Fairén, Alberto G.
AU - Zorzano, María Paz
N1 - Funding Information:
A.A.B. and A.G.F. thank the Project “icyMARS”, funded by the European Research Council, ERC Starting Grant No. 307496. M.P.Z., C.G.S., R.F. and F.J.M.T. thank the funding received from the Dubai Future Foundation through the Guaana.com open research platform (https://www.guaana.com/projects/jeGEimuX6DLCLsbQP).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Here we inspect whether microbial life may disperse using dust transported by wind in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, a well-known Mars analog model. By setting a simple experiment across the hyperarid core of the Atacama we found that a number of viable bacteria and fungi are in fact able to traverse the driest and most UV irradiated desert on Earth unscathed using wind-transported dust, particularly in the later afternoon hours. This finding suggests that microbial life on Mars, extant or past, may have similarly benefited from aeolian transport to move across the planet and find suitable habitats to thrive and evolve.
AB - Here we inspect whether microbial life may disperse using dust transported by wind in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, a well-known Mars analog model. By setting a simple experiment across the hyperarid core of the Atacama we found that a number of viable bacteria and fungi are in fact able to traverse the driest and most UV irradiated desert on Earth unscathed using wind-transported dust, particularly in the later afternoon hours. This finding suggests that microbial life on Mars, extant or past, may have similarly benefited from aeolian transport to move across the planet and find suitable habitats to thrive and evolve.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071189771&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-019-47394-z
DO - 10.1038/s41598-019-47394-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 31439858
AN - SCOPUS:85071189771
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 9
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 11024
ER -
