Yes, of course
The first ecosystem ever found having only a single biological species has been discovered 2.8 kilometers (1.74 miles) beneath the surface of the earth in the Mponeng gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa. There the rod-shaped bacterium Desulforudis audaxviator exists in complete isolation, total darkness, a lack of oxygen, and 60-degree-Celsius heat (140 degrees Fahrenheit)
truly extreeemophile
D. audaxviator survives in a habitat where it gets its energy not from the sun but from hydrogen and sulfate produced by the radioactive decay of uranium. D. audaxviator must build its organic molecules by itself out of water, inorganic carbon, and nitrogen from ammonia in the surrounding rocks and fluid.It lives all alone!!!!!
During its long journey to the extreme depths, evolution has equipped the versatile spelunker with genes – many of them shared with archaea, members of a separate domain of life unrelated to bacteria – that allow it to cope with a range of different conditions, including the ability to fix nitrogen directly from elemental nitrogen in the environment.
D. audaxviator was captured and its unusual genome sequenced and analyzed using the techniques of environmental genomics, also called metagenomics.D. audaxviator has 2,157 protein-coding genes.the genome contained everything needed for the organism to sustain an independent existence and reproduce, including the ability to incorporate the elements necessary for life from inorganic sources, move freely, and protect itself from viruses, harsh conditions, and nutrient-poor periods by becoming a spore.
"One question that has arisen when considering the capacity of other planets to support life is whether organisms can exist independently, without access even to the sun," says Chivian. "The answer is yes, and here's the proof. It's sort of philosophically exciting to know that everything necessary for life can be packed into a single genome."
Previous work had identified sulfates as the most readily available energy source in D. audaxviator 's environment. D. audaxviator not only has the equipment to reduce sulfates, this capacity is backed up by additional genes that appear to have been borrowed from archaea by horizontal gene transfer, the incorporation of genetic material from an unrelated species.
D. audaxviator can get its carbon from a number of sources, depending on the local surroundings. It can digest sugars and amino acids, suggesting that one source of carbon might be the dead cells of other microbes in locations where the concentration of cells permits. But in the fluid from level 104, where biodensity is low, D. audaxviator is able to survive because its genome also contains genes equipping the organism to get carbon from carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, bicarbonate, formate, and other nonbiological sources.
Its nitrogen comes from ammonia released from rocks and dissolved in the fluid, but D. audaxviator also has a gene for a nitrogenase that could, if necessary, extract nitrogen from its surroundings after first converting it to ammonia – a gene that also appears to be shared with high-temperature archaea.
About the only thing D. audaxviator can't do is resist oxygen, which suggests it hasn't been exposed to pure oxygen for a very long time. For D. audaxviator to have evolved its remarkably versatile genome, key parts of which are shared with archaea, it must have been on its deep journey for many generations, perhaps as long as the water in the fracture from which it was captured, which has not seen the surface for millions of years.
D. audaxviator 's remarkable capabilities gave rise to its remarkable name. The genus name Desulforudis was coined by Tullis Onstott from the Latin for "from sulfur" and "rod," noting its shape and its ability to get energy from sulfates.
And audaxviator? Dylan Chivian found the clue in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, in a message – "Conveniently in Latin," says Chivian -- deciphered by Verne's protagonist, Professor Lidenbrock, which reads in part, "descende, Audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges." It means "descend, Bold traveler, and attain the center of the Earth."
